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The place is Yaoundé, Cameroun, the year 2014, and the German and French national teams are meeting for a match. But wait: why are all the players black? Is this a replay of the war between Germany and France a century before, fought not only in Europe, but also in Cameroun, with local soldiers standing in for their colonial masters? This provocative reenactment (called Nebensaison) by Berlin-based artist Philip Kojo Metz raises many complex questions. Is football the continuation of politics by other means? Who has the ball? Who controls the game? Probing racial stereotypes and prejudices, the film looks more closely at the allegedly imitative, secondary character of non-European culture against the backdrop of white supremacy in world politics and its proclaimed (but never achieved) reversal in sport and, recently, art. PHILIP KOJO METZ joins in conversation on these issues with JOSHUA KWESI AITKINS, postcolonial researcher and activist, as well as author and sport journalist CHRISTOPH BIERMANN.

PHILIP KOJO METZ is a Berlin-based conceptual artist working with themes related to identity, history, and the relationship of contemporary cultures towards one another. He uses different media such as photography, painting, sculpture, objectsm video and performance. His works were recently exhibited at the NGBK in Berlin, the Cité in Paris, the Kunsthalle München as well as the Haverford College Philadelphia.

JOSHUA KWESI AITKINS is a research associate at the University of Kassel and a PhD candidate at the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology. His research interests include the interaction between western-style and indigenous political institutions in Ghana, post- and decolonial perspectives on ‘development’, cultural and political representation of the African Diaspora, coloniality and the politics of memory in Germany as well as Critical Whiteness research. He is involved in various projects at the intersection of academic analysis and civic engagement.

CHRISTOPH BIERMANN is a sports journalist and author. He is a member of the editorial board of the football magazine 11 Freunde and previously worked for Der Spiegel and Süddeutsche Zeitung. His recent books Wenn wir von Fußball träumen (2014), Fast alles über 50 Jahre Bundesliga (2013, together with Philip Köster) and Die Fußball-Matrix. Auf der Suche nach dem perfekten Spiel (2009) were all published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch. He is a member of the German Academy for Football Culture. Biermann lives in Berlin.

Thuesday 16 June 2016 / 19:00
Venue: ACADEMYSPACE, Herwarthstraße 3, 50672 Cologne
Free admission

An event in the frame of PLURIVERSALE IV.

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