Traces of Colonial Past at the Dahlem Research Campus
Charlotte Ming and Yangkun Shi’s collaborative and interdisciplinary work brings to light the obscured history of German colonialism in China, combining photography, video, writing, and archival imagery.
Image gallery
Triptychon-Installation von Rosa Merk
Their work traces the legacies of this history across urban landscapes from Qingdao to Berlin, exposing this forgotten past and its underlying violence. Intertwining personal and historical narratives, they challenge and reframe the colonial gaze to re-center contemporary migration experiences.
The Dahlem Research Campus is a place where scientific reflection and public debate meet: the renaming of the surrounding streets with references to German colonial history in China – Takustraße, Lansstraße, and Iltisstraße – which has been demanded and discussed for decades, show how the confrontation with colonial pasts also shapes the immediate surroundings and local discourses.
An exhibition of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf Department of Culture in cooperation with the Dahlem Research Campus, supported by the Bezirkskulturfonds/Unterfonds zur Aufarbeitung der Kolonialgeschichte.
The artworks were commissioned by Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City in 2024
