What does it mean to work with invisible (hi)stories? How do we manoeuvre through a situation marked by collective amnesia, and how does that affect how we take in information today? Is it always the responsibility of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) artists to retell the stories that have been erased? Does the amnesia repeat itself? Why is it difficult to access earlier (hi)stories told by and for BIPOC?
Plattform is proud to invite you to a discussion with artists and writers Sandra Mujinga, Jeannette Ehlers and Christelle Oyiri, moderated by curator Samuel Girma. The discussion is organised in connection with the exhibition “SONW – Shadow of New Worlds” by Sandra Mujinga, shown in Bergen Kunsthall 22. November 2019 — 19. January 2020.
Sandra Mujinga, born in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a Norwegian artist and musician who lives and works in Oslo and Berlin.
Jeannette Ehlers is a Copenhagen-based artist of Danish and Trinidadian descent whose practice takes shape experimentally across photography, video, installation, sculpture and performance. Ehlers’ work often makes use of self representation and image manipulation to bring about decolonial hauntings and disruptions. These manifestations attend to the material and affective afterlives of Denmark’s colonial impact in the Caribbean and participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade—realities that have all too often been rendered forgettable by dominant history-writing. Ehlers insists on the possibility for empowerment and healing in her art, honouring legacies of resistance in the African diaspora. On 31 March 2018 she unveiled I Am Queen Mary, a public sculpture project in collaboration with La Vaughn Belle, at KAS, Cph, DK.
Christelle Oyiri, a DJ, producer and French critic, is the author of “Collective Amnesia: In memory of Logobi”. Highly influenced by the theoretical work of the Cybernetic Club Research Unit, Christelle Oyiri makes her interdisciplinary practice an interstice to understand the links between club culture, technology, ethnomusicology and the issue of representation of the French-speaking black diaspora.
Samuel Girma is a curator, cultural-producer and activist based in Stockholm. Currently he is part of the CinemAfrica Film Festival in Stockholm and an editor at Kontext Press. He is a co-founder of the anti-racist, intersectional and feminist movement and platform Black Queers Sweden. Born and raised in Ethiopia, Samuel moved to Sweden at the age of 13. Much of Samuels work, art and writing depart from the migrational process and centers around the experiences of Black bodies.
Plattform is Bergen Kunsthall’s lecture series connected to our exhibition programme and wider contemporary debates.
Plattform events are video-streamed live at kunsthall.no, Vimeo and Facebook.
The project is funded by Bergen Kommune, Fritt Ord, and the Creative Europe programme of the European Union as part of Re-Imagine Europe project.