• Tue 30 04 2019 •
MEMORY LAB #1 Fugitive Futurity – Archives as performative practice

17:30 – 18:30 Archives of Migration – Guided Tour of the DOMiD Archive

With members of the DOMiD team

Meeting point: DOMiD – Documentation Centre and Museum of Migration in Germany
Location: Venloer Str. 419, 50825 Cologne
In german language
Free admission

Registration required by 25 4 2019 at service@domid.org

19:00 Fugitive Futurity – Archives as Performative Practice
With NURAY DEMIR, KATRIN SCHAUMBURG and VANESSA THOMPSON

Location: artrmx e.V., Hospeltstr. 69, 50825 Cologne
In german language
Free admission


In recent years, (post-)migrant, racialized and multi-marginalized social groups and movements in Europe have increasingly introduced demands for the decolonization of remembrance policies into urban space. Dominant forms of memory are thus being challenged. In her lecture, VANESSA THOMPSON is dealing with living archives. Building on black, migrant and postcolonial feminist critique as well as reflections on the politics of fugitivity, she discusses the (im)possibilities of performative decolonization, considering the current workings of postcolonial power relations and the logic of inclusion. The artist NURAY DEMIR provides insights into her artistic practice and discusses the role of archives in the immaterial heritage of postmigrant society through her work Kein schöner Archiv (Not a beautiful archive), which she co-developed with Michael Annoff. This kind of heritage is kept alive by the repetition and transmission of living culture. It cannot be locked away in a showcase. The scholar and the artist will be joined by KATRIN SCHAUMBURG, a DOMiD employee, and the moderator AURORA RODONÒ to discuss the field of tension between volatile performative archive practices and classical archives. The event is preceded by a guided tour of the DOMiD at 17:30.
Since 1990, the DOMiD (Documentation Centre and Museum of Migration in Germany) has been collecting and preserving materials on the history of migration. Its collection of social, everyday and cultural historical testimonies is unique nationwide. The association is now planning to establish a migration museum. In 2018, the DOMiD also opened a virtual museum that uses a digital app to turn the history of migration into an interactive experience.

The Memory Lab is funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education/bpb.

In cooperation with artrmx e.V.

A series of events of the Akademie der Künste der Welt in cooperation with DOMiD – Documentation Centre and Museum of Migration in Germany