What the Land Remembers: Racism and Environmental Injustice

Through performances, lectures, and discussions, artists and curators explore how the colonial roots of the ecological movement have remained a white spot despite profoundly shaping environmental discourses, politics, and practices to this day. How can decolonial and queer ecologies become sites of possibilities for alternative imaginaries of nature, sustainability, mutuality, Blackness, (non)humanity, and ecological responsibility?

“In order to think through a cartography of Black ecologies, it is necessary to remember that the relationship between Black subjectivity and the more-than-human remains contested. It is fraught with histories of colonial violence, with increasingly harsh climates, and with the haunting of dispossessed lands, lives, and lifeways; the rituals through which we lived, loved, killed, ate, decomposed, and dreamed together.” – Ama Josephine Budge

The second day of the programme, titled “What the Land Remembers: Racism and Environmental Injustice”, explores the imperial durabilities of the human-nature relationship, particularly regarding land. The panel and performances explore how colonialism and racism continue to shape nature conservation, toxic landscapes and climate change to this day.

Programme

15:30-18:00, HAU2-Studio Film programme curated by Ragil Huda

Ragil Huda is a curator, cultural practitioner, and graduate student at the Asien-Afrika Institut, Universität Hamburg. He is also one of the committees organizing the international platform and network called ‘Queer’ Asia in Berlin. His community engagement and academic work specifically centre on queerness, community building, critical pedagogy, and the social-political realities of marginalized communities through various methodologies and collaborative curatorial practices.

19:00-20:45, HAU2 Panel with Zina Saro-Wiwa, Peter Emorinken-Donatus and Kwesi Aikins, moderation: Aouefa Amoussouvi

Zina Saro-Wiwa is a multi-disciplinary artist working with video installation, sound, photography, film, distillation, food and institution-building. Her subject of interest are primarily environmentalism under which she explores invisible and spiritual ecologies and the nature of power and she is constantly studying and re-imagining indigeneity. She is committed to exploring how earth-based wisdoms challenge political power dynamics and advance creativity. She runs her own not-for-profit the Mangrove Arts Foundation which uses art, culture, food and agricultural projects including her Illicit Gin Institute to transform the fate of the oil-cursed Niger Delta. She is also working on her first ever feature film titled “Eucharia”.

Peter Emorinken-Donatus is a freelance journalist, winner of the taz Panter Prize 2022, educational consultant, environmental activist and long-time opponent of the Shell corporation. Emorinken-Donatus is co-initiator and spokesperson of the movement Bündnis Ökozidgesetz, which was founded with the aim of criminalising ecocide, and together with some experts from the Global South living in Germany, he recently founded the BIPoC think-tank Care & Repair - Decolonial Think-Tank For Environmental Justice. He is currently researching the topic of flight and displacement in connection with the environment and ecocides.Kwesi Aikins is a prominent activist and public scholar in both Germany and Ghana. His research interests include the interaction between western-style and indigenous political institutions in Ghana, post- and decolonial perspectives on ‘development,’ cultural and political representation of the African Diaspora, equality data, coloniality and the politics of memory in Germany.  

Aikins is involved in antiracist organizing, diaspora empowerment, and the ongoing struggle for a decolonial renaming of Berlin streets and a shift from colonial to anti- and decolonial commemoration in and beyond the German capital. He is co-author of the Afrozensus, the first comprehensive survey of Black, African and Afrodiasporic people in Germany.

21:00-22:00, HAU2 Performance: Ladji Kone “Going Green – Upside Down” (“Allant vert a l´envers”)

The performance “Allant vert a l´envers” addresses the synergy and proximity between humans and nature, and reflects on humans as nature. It's a project about questioning natural instincts, about the complicity and closeness of city dwellers with urban greenery, with rituals in chaos and unconscious imbalance with no guaranteed points of reference. Projecting ourselves from a park in Ouagadougou, we find ourselves in the middle of a magical space that is losing its balance and threatened by various dangers. Their unexpected inhabitants are faced with the challenge of saving their habitat, and despite their different characters, they are looking for collective answers. Will the natural spirits and mythical deities be on their side? An artist, dancer, choreographer, and composer, Ladji Kone began dancing as a self-taught student in his neighbourhood of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. In 2003, the discovery of hip-hop culture channelled his exuberant energy, and breakdancing became his laboratory for exploring the possible. After training in theatre and music, he turned to contemporary dance. Today, Ladji is pursuing his artistic research at the crossroads of languages: hip-hop, traditional and contemporary dance, theatre and visual art. In the company Ciel K, he has merged his universe with the visual artist Michaela Solnická Volná. He is a co-founding member and artistic director of the Collectif JUMP (Jeunesse Unie pour un Mouvement Positif) in Burkina Faso, aiming to promote creativity as a factor in research and education in various fields.

22:00, CAN Bar Afterparty

(Program in English)