Decolonize–art–perspectives: Gespräch mit dem Künstler Nicholas Odhiambo Mboya und der Kuratorin Suy Lan Hopmann

In the organizer's words:

In cooperation with the fluctoplasma festival, artist Nicholas Odhiambo Mboya and curator Suy Lan Hopmann will be discussing institutional decolonization processes at the Kunsthaus Hamburg. Together they will reflect on the extent to which artistic strategies can contribute to dealing with colonial history, what expression colonial and decolonizing experiences can find in aesthetic and structural approaches to work and what it takes for institutions not only to take up decolonial practice in terms of content, but also to anchor it sustainably and structurally.

The starting point for the discussion is Nicholas Mboya's current exhibition Utopia - Dystopia at the Kunsthaus Hamburg. In his multimedia works, the Hamburg-based artist addresses the socio-political realities of his country of origin, Kenya, as well as the experiences of the African diaspora in Germany.

The event will be moderated by Franciska Petsch, social scientist and board member of the Afrikanischer Dachverband Norddeutschland e.V..

From October 23 to 26, 2025, the fluctoplasma festival offers a space for discourse and diversity with the help of art - 96 hours for a diverse urban society.

Suy Lan Hopmann is a curator at the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin and works on memory culture(s), decolonization, racism and migration as well as gender and queerness. Previously, she was a project officer for the decolonization of Hamburg at the city's Department of Culture and curator for special projects and diversity at the Museum am Rothenbaum - Kulturen und Künste der Welt (MARKK). She is a board member of ICOM Germany, a member of the ICOM Working Group Decolonization and a trustee of filia.die frauenstiftung. She studied Chinese Studies, Gender Studies and Sociology and worked as a research assistant at the Chair of Politics and Economics of China and the Collaborative Research Center 700 at the Free University of Berlin.

Nicholas Odhiambo Mboya studied Fine Arts at the Mwangaza School of Fine Arts Kisumu and at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. His works have been shown at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, JO (2025), ICAT, Hamburg, DE (2024), Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, DE (2024), Fluctoplasma Festival, Hamburg, DE (2021), MARKK Museum am Rothenbaum Kulturen und Künste der Welt, Hamburg, DE (2021) and Alliance Francaise, Nairobi, KE (2018), among others. He lives and works in Hamburg.