Interview with Felwine Sarr

TALKING OBJECTS in Conversation

Ahead of the two-day symposium UNEXPECTED LESSONS, Magnus Elias Rosengarten talked to keynote speaker Felwine Sarr in Berlin.

Felwine Sarr and Magnus Elias Rosengarten talk about the traces of history, asymmetrical power relations, new ways of relating to each other – and the power of archives.

»The Western Archive is exhausted!« — Felwine Sarr What can knowledge be today, beyond European knowledge systems? New perspectives and different questions are needed in order to break up colonial thought patterns and challenge Eurocentric, white views.

The Project TALKING OBJECTS aims to negotiate these questions on the African continent and in Germany. Five thematic fields are in the foreground: decolonizing memory, decolonizing knowledge, the re-evaluation of objects from colonial contexts, empowerment by and opportunities of artistic perspectives, and questions about classical museum forms of preservation and presentation.

The interview was conducted in Berlin on the occasion of UNEXPECTED LESSONS, June 11-12, 2021, at Akademie der Künste, Berlin, in Nairobi and online.

TALKING OBJECTS in conversation: Interview with Felwine Sarr by Magnus Elias Rosengarten