LIBERATING THE MONUMENT
The chosen proposal Liberating the monument will be realized in 2025 in the city of Braunschweig
A raised platform of black glossy polished granite will surround the monument. Which is a reference to the Obsidian mirror. This plateau has the same height as the base of the monument. And will fully ' embrace ' the monument . The black granite functions as a black mirror in which the dark colonial history that the monument represents is reflected. The names of resistance heroes who fought against the German colonial occupier are sandblasted into the granite. They also refer to tombstones. The visitor can listen to the biographies of these heroes via a QR code that will be placed in the vicinity of the monument. At night the monument will be illuminated with violet light by means of spotlights that are sunken into the granite surrounding the monument. "Violet is the last color in the color spectrum. It symbolizes the boundary between being and not being, seeing and not seeing. With the color violet, the monument is healed because violet can create equality, between all people. The monument is ' liberated ' from representing power and oppression.
production of the animation was made in collaboration with by Warning studio's and Woodworks Amsterdam
for more info: https://www.braunschweig.de/kultur/erinnerungskultur/a-12-decolonizing-public-space.php
Mea Culpa (2020)
Patricia Kaersenhout is commissioned by the German Foundation for Art and Culture in Bonn (DE) to develop a new work for the international traveling exhibition Diversity United - Contemporary European Art. Shown from 12-11-2020 til 14-02-2021 at the New Tretyakov Gallery Moscow (RU) and afterwards in Berlin and Paris.
Kaersenhout’s proposal is based on an investigations into the legacies of power and wealth associated with slavery in the regions historically controlled by today’s European powers. Its title, Mea Culpa, refers to the traditional Christian practice of atoning for sins through enduring physical hardship during ritual pilgrimages. Kaersenhout brings this practice into the present day by suggesting the acceptance of guilt by figures representing today’s powerful elites, onto which the audience is invited to project their own understanding of the crimes for which they may wish to atone.