The panel discussions take as their point of departure the Western, ideologically dressed-up concept of freedom, of which the Congress Hall – today the Haus der Kulturen der Welt – itself is a symbol. The building, conceived as an architectural signal in the Cold War, exemplifies the humanistic universalism of the “free West” that reordered itself after the Second World War.

AFTER YEAR ZERO brings this formation up against the first Asian-African conference, held in Bandung almost simultaneously with the opening of the Congress Hall, at which a model was drafted for collaboration by the global South under the banner of an anticolonial modern era. Bandung positioned itself ideologically not in relationship to the Iron Curtain, but rather to the “Color Curtain” (the title of Richard Wright’s report on the conference). GEOGRAPHIES OF COLLABORATION in turn begins with the question of the claim to universalism. It seeks a new formulation, from various locations and perspectives, for the pursuit and assertion of universality today.

The themes:
Writing History / Resources in the Space Age / The Bandung Moment

The speakers: Adekeye Adebajo, Nabil Ahmed, John Akomfrah, Kader Attia, Garnette Cadogan, Jihan El-Tahri, Rangoato Hlasane, James T. Hong, Keyti, Bongani Madondo, Rastko Mo?nik, Fred Moten, Charles Tonderai Mudede, The Otolith Group, some authors of the project « Travelling Communiqué. Reading a Photo Archive (1948 – 1980) Presidential Press Service, Yugoslavia », Shirin Rai

The second part of the conference will be held on November 23 and 24.

In collaboration with The Space Between Us

The project AFTER YEAR ZERO is based on a series of workshops, that took place in 2012 in Algier, Dakar, Paris and Johannesburg under the title „Matters of Collaboration“ , in co-operation with Goethe-Institut Brüssel, funded by the Excellence programme of the Goethe-Institut.

www.hkw.de