Programme
Friday, 29 November 2019
2 – 8:15 pm
The Namibian Case
In Cooperation with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
2 – 2:30 pm, Pariser Platz, Plenary Hall
WELCOME
Johannes Odenthal (Director of Programming, Akademie der Künste, Germany) – with a short introduction of the artistic photo documentary of Ixmucané Aguilar
Wolfgang Kaleck (General Secretary, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, ECCHR, Germany)
Wolf Iro (Head of Culture Department, Goethe-Institut, Munich Head Office, Germany)
2:30 – 3:15 pm, Pariser Platz, Plenary Hall
KEYNOTE
Joshua Castellino (Professor of Law & Dean of the School of Law at Middlesex University, UK)
Sima Luipert (Deputy Chairperson of the Nama Traditional Leaders Association Technical Committee
on Genocide, Namibia)
3:15 – 5 pm, Pariser Platz, Plenary Hall
PANEL I
Addressing Colonial Injustice through the Law
Ida Hoffmann (Chairperson, Nama Genocide Technical Committee, Namibia)
Alexandra Kemmerer (Senior Research Fellow and Academic Coordinator, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Germany)
John Nakuta (Human Rights and Administrative Law Lecturer, University of Namibia / Media Ombudsperson, Namibia)
Moderation: Judith Hackmack (Lawyer, ECCHR, Germany)
The military operation of the German Schutztruppe against the Ovaherero and Nama is widely recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century. Even today, it raises fundamental questions of (in-)justice. In the present-day debate of how to address colonial crimes, legal arguments are made by all sides. Most people have come to acknowledge that colonial patterns persist in international law. But how can and should the legal debate deal with the topic of colonialism? How can questions of injustice be addressed within the law? And what do we need to finally decolonize the law?
5:30 pm, Pariser Platz, Black Box
VISITING
Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi: They tried to bury us, 2018/2019
Multimedia Installation
6 – 7:30 pm, Pariser Platz, Plenary Hall
PANEL II
Living Memories – Artistic Positions and Memory Politics
Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi (Visual Artist, Namibia)
Trixie Munyama (Dancer, Performer, Choreographer and Teacher, Namibia)
Moderation: Johannes Odenthal
Cultural memory is a central theme for postcolonial discourses, but above all for the active emancipation from predominant conditions. Hegemonic structures have suppressed or tried to destroy cultural identities.
Today, it is in particular the artistic and culturally critical research that works on other narratives, new cultural identities and common transformation processes. The artists' panel is dedicated to this.
It is about uncovering collective and individual traumas, the memory of repressed narratives or the invention of new identities beyond forms of domination of colonialism or apartheid politics. In artistic installations or performances, cultural memory can be considered as a living process of the appropriation and transformation of one's own history, but above all as an assertion of individual positions and perspectives.
7:30 – 8:15 pm, Pariser Platz, Plenary Hall
CLOSING REMARKS
Alejandra Ancheita (Founder and Executive Director, ProDESC, Mexico)
Jessé de Souza (Sociologist, Universidade Federal do ABC, Brasil / Sorbonne Université, France)
Thomas Krüger (President, Federal Agency for Civic Education/bpb, Germany)
Artistic Positions
29 November – 8 December 2019
Pariser Platz, Black Box
Isabel Tueumuna Katjavivi: They tried to bury us
Multimedia Installation 2018/2019
Daily 11 am – 7 pm