The Living Archives is an online platform, which will primarily be used to document, archive and make available knowledge and content, that is generated within BIPoC communities. Integrating and referring to this knowledge, the platform will also be used as a learning space for these communities. In this event the project The Living Archives will be presented to the public for the first time.
We are looking forward to welcoming words by Peggy Piesche (Federal Agency for Civic Education, Germany – Diversity, Intersectionality and Decoloniality – D.I.D.) and two keynote talks by Fatima El-Tayeb (University of California, San Diego) and Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez (Justus-Liebig-University, Gießen) and a panel discussion with Arike Oke (Black Cultural Archives, London), Tayo Awosusi-Onutor (RomaniPhen Archive, Berlin), and Nicola Lauré al-Samarai (historian, author, curator) within the framework of this presentation.
The aim of the project is to capture and make accessible content and knowledge generated within BIPoC contexts in past and present. xart splitta understands The Living Archives as a “Resistant Knowledge Project” (Patricia Hill Collins). Archiving and documentation is therefore seen as a decolonial act – concepts and practices of archiving are redefined in terms of their colonial, racist, and heteronormative context of origin and used as a medium of “counter-narration”.
The first content for the site will be provided by the ongoing work of xart splitta as well as by texts, conversations and content that was created in the context of the project “Passing it On”. A project that was carried out by xart splitta in 2019 by Nicola Lauré al-Samarai and Iris Rajanayagam; and in the context of which the idea for the online portal was born. The website will however remain a work in progress and we are looking forward to the collaboration with a variety of individuals and communities in the further development of The Living Archives.
—
Programme
6:00pm: Welcoming words: Peggy Piesche (Federal Agency for Civic Education, Germany – Diversity, Intersectionality and Decoloniality – D.I.D.)
6:15pm: Presentation The Living Archives with Iris Rajanayagam and Juliana Kolberg (xart splitta)
6:30pm: Keynote talks by Fatima El-Tayeb and Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez
7:15-8:45pm: Panel discussion with Arike Oke, Tayo Awosusi-Onutor and Nicola Lauré al-Samarai. Moderation: Iris Rajanayagam
—
This event will take place online and will be held in spoken English and German.
The access information to the event will be sent out on November 18th, 2020.
The link to the website will be available from November 19th, 2020 onward at www.xartsplitta.net
The Living Archives is funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education/bpb.
Speakers
Arike Oke is the director of the Black Cultural Archives, in London. She has been working in the field of memory and heritage for over 15 years. She has been involved in the “Connecting Histories” project in Birmingham, UK and in the development of the archive of the “Wellcome Collection” and co-organised the first Black History Month in Hull. She is a board member of the strategic initiative “Unlocking Archives” of the National Archives, Richmond, UK and is a Fellow of the programme “Museums and Resilient Leadership” of the Arts Council England. https://blackculturalarchives.org/
Tayo Awosusi-Onutor is a singer, author, director, political activist, mother and lives in Berlin. She describes herself as Afro-Sintezza. She interprets her music in English, German and Romanes. She also lends her voice to film and TV as a dubbing singer and voiceover artist. Tayo studied German and Multimedia. She is a board member of RomaniPhen e.V. and a member of the IniRromnja. She deals with the topics education, history and the civil rights movement. In 2017 she published the documentary “Phral mende – Wir über uns. Perspectives of Sinti and Roma in Germany”. Tayo is also politically involved in various Communities of Colour. Further information can be found at www.tayo-online.de and www.romnja-power.de.
Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez is professor of sociology at the Justus-Liebig-University, Gießen. Her teaching and research focuses on issues of global inequalities and their local expression, particularly in Germany, Spain and the UK. She is also interested in (post)Marxist and decolonial perspectives on feminist and queer epistemology and its application in the fields of migration, labour and culture. She is currently working on affective labour/materialities, institutional racism, racist capitalism and the coloniality of migration. She is a member of the advisory board of “Wagadu. A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies” and the Research Group on Migration and Human Rights. She is also editor of the series Anthem Studies in Decoloniality and Migration.
Nicola Lauré al-Samarai is a historian and cultural scientist. Her areas of interest include Black and Diaspora studies, Critical Race Feminism(s), concepts of creolisation and poetics of relationship, and decolonising memory and cultural policies in the context of intersectionality and experience. She works as author, editor, mediator and curator. She was involved in the following projects, among others: Labor 89: Andere Perspektiven auf die Wendezeit (2019/2020), Grenzgänger*innen: Schwarze und Osmanische Präsenzen in der Metropole Berlin um 1700 (2018/2019), Decolonize ’68 (2018), conzepte. Neue Fassungen politischen Denkens (2010/2011), Homestory Deutschland. Schwarze Biografien in Geschichte und Gegenwart (2005–2012).
Fatima El-Tayeb is professor of literature and ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego. In her work, she focuses on the deconstruction of structural racism in “colour-blind” Europe and centres resistance strategies among racialised communities. In addition to numerous articles, she has published UnDeutsch. The Construction of the Other in Postmigrant Society (transcript 2016), Anders Europäisch. Rassismus, Identität und Widerstand im vereinten Europa (University of Minnesota Press 2011) and Schwarze Deutsche. Der Diskurs um „Rasse“ und nationale Identität 1890– 1933 (Campus 2001).
