The transdisciplinary workshop "Shifting Memories - Moving Histories: Remembering Postcolonial Cologne" kicked off in May 2016. This workshop was thematically based on a Volkswagen Foundation research proposal whose main purpose was to explore the diverse dynamics of cultural memory in interdisciplinary collaboration between academics and artists. In particular, references were made between the colonial past of Germany, the Holocaust and current migration-social phenomena in Germany. Another intention of the project was to name and examine social discourses and power constellations that often keep certain memories invisible and silent. This research proposal resulted in the workshop Shifting Memories - Moving Histories: Remembering Postcolonial Cologne", which intensified the collaboration of artists and scientists and enabled the conceptual development of the project.

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Discussion Framework - Key Concepts:

    embodied/materialized memory

    competing histories

    power relations

 

Focus Questions:

Are there any key concepts that have a particular relevance to or resonance in your own work?

How do you approach these key themes from your particular methodology/discipline?

How do these key concepts resonate (or not) with your field of practice in general? 

Are there connections or inter-relations between your own research interests/ themes and those of the key concepts listed above? If so what are they and are there important topics/ themes/issues that this particular investigation might silence or make invisible? (i.e. the exclusion of other relevant topics).

 

Participants included:

- Arahmaiani, is a figure leading contemporary performance and visual artist from Indonesia.

- Barbara Hofner, PhD studied medicine and psychology majoring in psychiatry during the NS era.

- Ciraj Rassool, Ph.D is Professor of History and Director of the African Programs in Museum and Heritage Studies at the University of the Western Cape.

- Fabian Chyle, Ph.D - Choreographer, Performer & Movement Therapist - Academy of Cultural Education.

- Larissa Fӧrster Ph.D. has worked on the memory of German colonialism and restitution / repatriation of human remains to Namibia, Australia and other countries - Humboldt University Berlin.

- Laure Young, is a Canadian choreographer and performer living and working in Berlin.

- Lindsay Barrett is a research fellow in the School of International Studies at the University of Technology, Sydney as well as a film-maker and museum curator.

- Michael Lazar, Ph.D is an earth scientist from Israel and an internationally acclaimed artist.

- Miraim Remy, is a facilitator and multiplier for anti-bias as well as empowering and inclusive education.

- Monica van der Haagen-Wulff, Doctorate of Creative Arts (DCA), is a contemporary performer, installation artist and associate lecturer at the Chair of Education and Cultural Sociology at the Institute of Comparative Educational and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne

- Sally Sussman is Artistic Director of Australian Performance Exchange (APE).

- Stephan Milich, Ph.D is teaching Modern Arabic Culture and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the University of Cologne.

- Timo Herbst, is an exhibiting artist who received his diploma from Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig.

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The transdisciplinary workshop, which was facilitated by the University of Cologne - SINTER (Social Inequalities and Intercultural Education).

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“New insights were gained on the incredible diversity of traces of trauma, scars and memory that are contained in bodies, human remains, landscapes, plants, animals (taxidermy) earth (layers of memory contained in earth, the dead sea, and in mountains of post WWII rubble.). These inscribed scars can be traced back to the epistemic structures built on the legacy of colonialism and slavery and contained in the dehumanising exclusionary logic's of Eurocentric conceptions of modernity, still being reproduced today without taking into consideration ‘our’ implicatedness in this history. The University, Museum and the Archive are three such historically implicated epistemic institutions. New insights also emerged about the value of applying alternative, minoritarian epistemologies to promote social/environmental change, in Arahmaiani's case, whereby she has used her minority position as a woman and artist from the global south (from Indonesia: a country with a history of 350 years of Dutch colonialism) to enter Tibet and use this knowledge and experience to her advantage in promoting social and environmental change and empowerment in Tibet” (van der Haagen-Wulff, 2016)

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From the interdisciplinary approach to the core topics, a common thread emerged between the various disciplines and approaches, but was not hierarchically occupied by the diverse lenses and perspectives (science, practice, body, affects, landscapes, environment, wildlife) and thus a new experience and understanding enabled.