The TALKING OBJECTS LAB is a research project dedicated to the decolonization of memory and knowledge. Since 2021, it has been unfolding in workshops, think tanks, symposia, artistic interventions and exhibitions in Germany, Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria and on the internet. The aims of the LAB are to break through colonial thought patterns, question Eurocentric perspectives, practice epistemic disobedience and promote decolonial curatorial and artistic practices. Essential to this is the reconsideration of objects as carriers of history and mediators of knowledge as well as the consideration of how we (can) enter into a relationship with them as counterparts. The LAB pursues a poly-perspective approach that breaks with hierarchies of knowledge and understands memory as a process that develops dynamically from the present. It emphasizes that we are always moving through networks of diverse meanings and possible interpretations. What consequences does this have for curatorial and artistic practice as well as forms of museum preservation and (re-)presentation?
Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka ist Kunstwissenschaftlerin und Kuratorin am Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt/Main. In ihren Ausstellungen, Vorträgen, Texten und interdisziplinären Projekten befasst sie sich mit den Themen Erinnerungskultur, Repräsentation und der Dekolonisierung von Kunst- und Kulturpraxis. Sie studierte VWL in Heidelberg, sowie Kunstwissenschaft, Philosophie und Ausstellungsdesign an der HfG in Karlsruhe, wo sie 2015 promovierte.
The Cornelia Goethe Colloquia are an open discussion forum for interdisciplinary gender studies. Anyone interested is cordially invited!
