• Tue 21 05 2019 •
MEMORY LAB #2 Contested Memories – A Memorial for the Victims of NSU in Cologne

With ULF AMINDE, PETER BACH, AYSE GÜLEÇ, MITAT ÖZDEMIR and SANDRA VACCA of the initiatives 'UNRAVELLING NSU COMPLEX' TRIBUNAL and HERKESIN MEYDANI – ROOM FOR ALL

Fifteen years ago, in 2014, a nail bomb exploded at a hairdresser’s in Keupstraße. It was a racist attack, just like another explosion three years earlier (Probsteigasse, 2001). The Cologne city council ruled for a monument to their victims to be erected facing the site in Keupstraße in Cologne-Mülheim. In collaboration with those affected, the Berlin artist Ulf Aminde developed a design that convinced the jury, which consisted of Keupstraße residents, art experts and politicians. However, the project is not progressing because a lucrative commercial quarter is to be built at the Alter Güterbahnhof, the site intended for the monument. The initiative HERKESIN MEYDANI – PLATZ FÜR ALLE (ROOM FOR ALL) is a union of the initiatives Keupstraße ist überall (Keupstraße is everywhere) and the 'Unravelling NSU Complex' Tribunal. It demands the realization of the memorial at the planned site, supporting the victims of the nail bomb attack and fighting against their renewed repression. This is not the only place where memorials to victims of racist violence provoke controversy. In Mölln, for instance, survivors of the Arslan family have been fighting for a worthy memorial to the victims of the racist murders in 1992 for many years; and in Kassel, the Yozgat family is demanding the renaming of Holländische Straße – the street where Halit Yozgat was murdered by Nazis in 2006 – to Halitstraße. But how can spaces of memory and solidarity be created? How to form alliances, and with whom? And what exactly are the demands and needs of those affected?

Start: 19:00
Location: VHS hall at the Mülheim District Hall, Wiener Platz 2a, 51065 Cologne
In german language
Free admission

The Memory Lab is funded by the Federal Agency for Civic Education/bpb. In cooperation with the education centre Volkshochschule Cologne. A series of events of the Akademie der Künste der Welt in cooperation with DOMiD – Documentation Centre and Museum of Migration in Germany.