Giving Birth To Quiet Revolutions
When The Hero Disrobes Her Armourphotos by Joe Kniesek Excentric Media
PK 865/1 Joseph T; Xhosa; POW recorded in 1917 Wünsdorf HalfMoon Camp, Germany
(song about girls’ dance) (announcing) Describing the dance, describing the dance (singing) O, weya weya hee ya welele O, he, girls She’s crying again, she’s crying again She’s cry-36 Girls, o haye girls O haye, o haya It’s the dance, girls. It’s the dance, girls Ho haya, Father37 Ho haya, Father Ho yo, for so long have I Ho haya, for so long have I ho he ho haye Iyo haye ho haye Iyo haye ho haye It is the dance, Father It is the dance, Father Ho haya, Father Ho haya haa Ho ha, Father Yeh haya, Father Ho haya, Father Yethana ndawo38 ho heya Oh no, by the Father Ho ha the dance Oh halalaleh, hah To the Father, to the Father Yeh hallelu, ho ha haye Ho haye ho haye Ho haye ho haye Ola, in the sun It’s the dance, Father It’s the dance, Father Iyo ha ho haye Iyo ha ho haye Ho haya, to the Father Ho haya to the Father Get on the train, oh haye Get on the train, oh haye O haya hoho O haya hoho O haya heheh He doesn’t know anything, Father I didn’t know anything, Father Because of not knowing anything Father Yey, now it’s this trial Yey, now it’s this trial, there I went Iyo hayi, I beg you Where am I dying now, Father?39 Iyo no, I beg you Iyo no hi |
“When The Hero Disrobes Her Armour; Giving Birth To Quiet Revolutions” | June 2016
A performance project on The Route That Tempts The Traveler To Test Gravity (Notes On The Paradigm Of Immunization) An Age Of Our Own Making Curated by Bonaventure Soh Ndikung & Solvej Ovesen Location: Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, Denmark During the First and Second World War special labour camps were created for the colonial prisoners of War. These camps became studios for propaganda cinema, scientific experimentation, academic research, and criminal anthropology for decades in Germany and its African colonies. Wilhelm Doegen, an anthropologist and linguistic, was responsible for the voice recording of over 4,500 prisoners of war particularly recorded in Halfmoon camp Berlin. Voices of soldiers from India, Brazil, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa were combined to create voice encyclopeadias and begin the Museum of World Cultures in Germany. According to Doegen, this production of knowledge was created by male voices and image, excluding women as it was considered at the time that women were not part of cultural or historical production, only in the creation of men. During personal research for the project Squat Monument in 2015, the collection of colonial voices housed in the LautArchiv at Humboldt Berlin and Basler Afrikanisher Bibliographen, have exposed unexpected finds; the voices of female resistance movements speaking from colonial camps, universities, movie sets, human zoos and in german settlements in Namibia. Unexplored and neglected for many decades, their voices speak about freedom, memory, resistance and poetry. Moreover, the voices of the male soldiers describe songs and stories of female presence (mothers, wives, daughter, ancestors) allowing the re-appearance of women in the history of world cultures that Doegen so evidently wanted to erase. These voices span post-war towards guerilla resistance fighters in the guerilla wars in Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia (1960-1994), most notably the SWAPO movement. Their testimonies expose the role and shifts of the role of women under 2 distinct colonial systems of oppression. Often these women fighting alongside men, would achieve leadership positions often through motherhood and pregnancy. Early recordings from 1910 recorded on grammaphone make a stark parallel to the evolution towards voice recordings on megaphones in the 21st century. Remarkably since 2009, the death of the former president of Gabon Omar Bongo, new forms of movements have migrated to the food markets in Libreville, Bitam, across to Yaoundé. Markets define territories of political resistance, union and organization through the voices of women selling goods in the markets. Each voice describes items, chants emancipation rights, and political oppositions. Each item seems to have a different rhythm or tone and create underground beats creating sonorous geographies. Each of the womens’ voices transitions from early 20th century recordings of grammaphones recorded under the ideological practice of the knowledge production towards world cultures adapting gently into testimonies of womens’ resistance influenced by the SWAPO movement into 21st century voices of women speaking on their market stands deleniating clear territories of economical interest and political statement, where items of consumerism are identified as codes towards political party inclinations. Suddenly feminist voices towards decolonial bodies and forms of resistance find new forms in the system of globalised local markets of consumerism markets as pockets of political resistance and demonstrations. For the installation-performance each item of clothes becomes a reminder of the position of representation and resistance against oppression whose same story becomes part of a bigger narrative on migration and nationality. Each item is selected, worn, washed and cut into the shape of kites. These kites may fly or not but they are a stark monument to coloniality, trade and historical production as well making perfect paradigm with the terms of migration, identity and border. The kite is a symbol or a memory that creates new birth for oppositions and alternative ecosystems of traditions prayer and medecine. The repetition of the voices become an alarm call to agency and urgency. Sirens towards alternative states. Action Performance Summary The action consists of the performer dressing their body from a pile of clothes. Gradually these clothes are removed to create a pile in the centre of a concentric sound installation. The clothes are washed in a bucket of red liquid and washed with soap water in another. The clothes are cut in pieces from the performer’s body to create flying kites, flying from the centre then hanging on the side of the museum wall. The voices in the megaphone gradually change over the course of the action. Duration: 2-4 hours |
Tropical Fever; Letters To My Children
photos: courtesy of SAVVY Contemporary
Otto von Bismarck statue, Tiergarten Berlin
curated by Marcio Carvahlo
Otto von Bismarck statue, Tiergarten Berlin
curated by Marcio Carvahlo
My Name Is
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photo: Luz Schwerwinski 2016
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