DESACTA.
GEGENFORMELN ZUR ENTWIRRUNG VON 140 JAHREN BERLINER AFRIKA-KONFERENZ

In the organizer's words:

DESACTA.
COUNTER-FORMULAS TO UNRAVEL 140 YEARS OF THE BERLIN AFRICA CONFERENCE

OPENING 13.11.2025 19:00
OPENING HOURS Until 11.01.2026 Thursday-Sunday 14:00-19:00
EXHIBITION WITH Aline Baiana, Sammy Baloji, Kathleen Bomani, Filipa César, Denise Ferreira da Silva & Valentina Desideri, Ange Dakouo, Hassan Darsi, Marinho de Pina,
M. NourbeSe Philip, Dicky Takndare, Neusa Trovoada
as well as with students and alumni of the HfG Karlsruhe: India Marie Adams, Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun, Senta Hirscheider, Edona Ibrahimi, Hyeonju Lee, Sukyoung Lee, Denise Onen, Nis Petersen & Johannes Thimm, Elisabeth Potemkin, Vici Schwab, Boying Yang - accompanied by guest lecturer Erik van Schaften

Free admission Donations welcome
VISIT SAVVY is accessible by wheelchair

Nineteen men, geological surveys, a map of the African continent, too much information and even more ignorance about the secrets of the earth's resources. The years 2024 and 2025 are marked by the 140-year echo of the Berlin Conference, where Africa was carved up and sliced open by the Western colonial powers.

DESACTA is a laboratory for counter-formulas against injustices committed and an investigation into the ideologies and roots of the West's ongoing efforts to desacralize the earth and its components in order to underhandedly exploit it. The project is anchored in two places: in Berlin (Germany), the seat of power and the site of the conference, and in Malafo (Guinea-Bissau), driven by the force of resistance to European colonialism as one of the countries that militarily won an anti-colonial war in Africa. DESACTA aims to re-enchant disenchanted raw materials as artistic, sonic, intellectual, performative, communal and spiritual services for anti-colonial care and healing between these two places. The exhibition component of the project invites creative practitioners to exhibit a series of gifts in response to the proposed invocation. The resulting exhibition altar will serve as a starting point for counter-rituals that we call sublimations/re-enchantments.

The project is funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds.