CTM 2023: The Time for Denial Is Over - Day 2

Joseph Kamaru (KMRU), Ketan Bhatti, Pamela Owusu-Brenyah, Elia Rediger, Fabrizio Cassol, Kojak Kossakamwe, Patrick Mudekereza

Since the 1960s, a movement of globally networked artists, intellectuals, and activists has persistently advocated for the restitution of African cultural assets and ancestral remains as an integral part of post-independence decolonisation. The debate on restitution has accelerated in recent years, with examples such as the Treasures of Béhanzin to the Republic of Benin, or of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Countless initiatives by artists and cultural institutions have emerged worldwide to advance and accompany this restitution process. GROUP50:50 invites artists, activists and thinkers from Europe and Africa to further discuss the foundations for a transnational restitution movement.

Programme of the day:

»Towards Non-extractive Practices in Contemporary Music«

»Temporary Stored« talk and listening session with Joseph Kamaru (KMRU)
Talks by Ketan Bhatti and Pamela Owusu-Brenyah, moderated by Elia Rediger
Please note two 30 second-long muted segments within Ketan Bhatti's talk, due to copyright reasons.

To this day, musicians from the Global North appropriate music from countries in the Global South and achieve great financial and professional success with it, while the musics’ creators or the cultures of origin receive neither attention nor recognition. In doing so, Western artists disregard the musicians' copyrights, which cannot be enforced due to a lack of legal foundations or appropriate collection societies. Thus, extractive practices of ethnomusicologists during the colonial period, who served the European archives, continue. How can new forms of collaboration develop and foster an equal and inspiring exchange?

The sound artist Joseph Kamaru aka KMRU will present a talk and listening session examining his work, »Temporary Stored« in which the artist questions the significance of sound archives for the history of colonial violence. Using synthesiser sounds, field recordings, and recordings from the archives of the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, he sets out to reappropriate the sounds that were stolen. Following the presentation, curator Pamela Owusu-Brenyah and composer and musician Kettan Bhatti present short talks moderated by GROUP50:50 co-founder Elia Rediger.

»The Use of Music for a Decolonial culture of Remembranc«
Performance by Fabrizio Cassol and Kojak Kossakamwe
Fabrizio Cassol and Kojak Kossakamwe in conversation with Patrick Mudekereza

Music plays a central role in the ritual practices interwoven with cultural artifacts in European museums, as well as in the inhumation of Ancestral Remains formerly stored in museums and university archives. How can contemporary musicians accompany the restitution of cultural artifacts and Ancestral Remains and participate in a decolonial culture of memory in European and African cities?Following a performance, the musicians Fabrizio Cassol and Kojak Kossakamwe speak with writer and curator Patrick Mudekereza.

Curated by GROUP50:50 in cooperation with CTM Festival, PODIUM Esslingen, Centre d’Art Waza Lubumbashi, and Fondazione Studio Rizoma Palermo. Funded by the German Federal Agency of Civic Education.

Recorded live on 4 February 2023
CTM Festival 2023 – Portals