Locantion(s)

nGbK, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 11/13, 10178 Berlin

Artists:

Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, Martin Toloku, Sarah Ama Duah, Anthony R. Green & Julius Yaw Quansah, Rüzgâr Buşki & Mawuenya Amudzi, Marcella Nuerkie Akuetteh, Rebecca Korang & Efia Serwah, Akpene Akosua Deku, Chie Marquart-Tabel & Austin Nortey, Angel Maxine, Isabel Kwarteng-Acheampong, Audrey Obuobisa-Darko, Baahwa, Damien Kwadjo, Efua Osei, Kobena Ampofo, Kwame Boateng, Nenyi Ato Bentum, Kwame Brenyah, Bodi Babatola, Otis Mensah and the K++V Performance Swarm

nGbK working group:

Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT), hn. lyonga, Sunny Pfalzer, Malte Pieper, Maj Smoszna

Activist Choreographies of Care: perfocraZe International Artist Residency connects Kumasi and Berlin, intertwining queer stories told in, about, and from those locations. Archival and newly produced artistic works, previous performances and new live actions are linked by an event program, bringing together the communal spirit of the residency with the notion of a gathering space provided by an exhibition display and performance set-up.

The project opens a satellite space of the perfocraZe International Artist Residency [pIAR] from Kumasi, Ghana, in Berlin. pIAR is a self-organized safer space for people of the LGBTQIA+ community in Ghana, which is currently under acute threat from a law disguised as “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights And Ghanaian Family Values Bill”. The law, which was passed by Parliament in February 2024 criminalizes the identification as LGBTQIA+ and the promotion of LGBTQIA+ rights, amongst many other activities. While the law has not been signed by the previous parliament, hence suspending its implementation, the new parliament allegedly plans to include the violent and discriminatory content of the law in school curricula.

Through installation, film, textiles, poetry and performance, the artists engage with the search for queer ancestries, dismantling colonial histories inscribed in bodies and spaces, to build different worlds that hold space for connection, daily resistance, and transformation. Kumasi and Berlin-based artists explore circular narrations and speculative queer futures. Looking at pre-colonial histories, the project gathers artists whose work challenges Western notions of binary genders and queerness, to raise international solidarity and build resilience networks.

The exhibition and accompanying public program will all culminate in a publication, which will be available from nGbK‘s publishing house in May.

Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi is supported by the Martin Roth-Initiative, a joint protection program of the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the Goethe-Institut, which is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.

In cooperation with the DAAD Arts and Media Program.

Events program

Friday, March 28, 7 p.m.

Exhibition opening with speeches and performances

Performance »Time Bomb« by Marcella Nuerkie Akuetteh

Concert Performance by Anthony R. Green & Julius Yaw Quansah, a.o.

Friday, April 18, 11 p.m.

Meeting point: Escalator in front of nGbK

As part of Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi’s (crazinisT artisT) Good Friday performance series, „The Glory Table of Death“ confronts the oppressive systems of church and state in the face of fast rising fascism. The series highlights the struggles and resilience of Black and queer lives and other marginalized individuals. Through living sculptural installations of her black queer body, Va-Bene juxtaposes the crucifixion and resurrection with the ongoing struggles of marginalized communities. „The Glory Table of Death“ reclaims the Passion narrative on Good Friday, mourning and honoring lives lost and voices silenced while proclaiming hope and defiance in the face of oppression. This performance piece transforms the traditional Good Friday narrative into a powerful call to action, demanding justice, equality, and love for all.

Saturday, April 19, 7 p.m.

Performance marathon by the K++V Swarm with Annika Hausherr, Cosima Zora, Florin Garzotto, Iris Nufer und Lucy Stossfellner, Jasmin Rolli, Kyrillos Nyx, Lis Kleiner, Luis Stadler, Martina Schädler, Maysam Imran Alsous and Keone Lee, Meret Schüpbach, Momo von Hettlingen, Rahel Hauri, Sara Loosli, Stephanie Anna Motz (class of Sunny Pfalzer, University of Applied Arts and Science Lucerne) and guests

The experimental collective K++V Swarm shares a one-hour program featuring 13 mini-performances and screenings. In the spirit of pIAR, everyone was welcomed to participate – a playful process rooted in queerness, community, and the desire to speak about the world we share.

Their work pulses with solidarity for queer communities in Ghana facing severe oppression – a legacy with Western fingerprints. As a mostly white group, they’re asking: What does allyship really look like? How can we hold space for nuance, difference, and tough conversations? Together, they’ve created a space for vulnerability and collaboration – a living act of intersectional activism – a new generation of unapologetically political voices.

The K++V Swarm formed within the performance class of artist/curator Sunny Pfalzer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Design, Film & Art – with Annika Hausherr, Cosima Zora, Florin Garzotto, Iris Nufer and Lucy Stossfellner, Jasmin Rolli, Kyrillos Nyx, Lis Kleiner, Luis Stadler, Martina Schädler, Maysam Imran Alsous and Keone Lee, Meret Schüpbach, Momo von Hettlingen, Rahel Hauri, Sara Loosli, Stephanie Anna Motz

Tuesday–Friday, April 22–25 April, 2–6 pm

Open studios, screenings, workshops, readings, and discussions with pIAR alumni, Jasmin Rolli, Austin Nortey, Kwame Brenyah, Mawuenya Amudzi, and guests. In German and English.

PROGRAM

Tuesday 22.04.2025:

13:00-15:00 REHEARSAL Sunny Pfalzer: Feeling Seen

15:00-17:00 WORKSHOP Mawuenya Amudzi: Harnessing patience through photo transfer

17:00-18:00 WORKSHOP Kwame Brenya: Adinkra and Symbolism

19:00 Film screening with films by artists and activists affiliated with pIAR

The pIARAMILY (pIAR-FAMILY) invites for a movie night. As it is the tradition at perfocraZe International Artist Residency – after dinner we collectively watch films. We provide popcorn and snacks. This screening will be featuring short films by artists and activists affiliated with pIAR such as Rebecca Pokua Korang, HYENAZ, Sunny Pfalzer, and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi. After the short films we will screen Mala Reinhardt’s “Familiar Places” (2024). Artists will be present for questions and dialogue!

Wednesday 23.04.2025:

13:00-14:00 WORKSHOP Marcella Naa Nuerkie Akuetteh: Community Bonding Through Textile Creation

14:00-15:00 WORKSHOP Jasmin Rolli: Why don’t you love yourself? Embroidering and Evaluating Fatherhood

15:00-18:00 WORKSHOP (queer BIPoC only) Vivian Ngozi Aghamelu: Resistance and Resilience in times of troublesome political events and finding home in our bodies

Thursday 24.04.2025:

13:00-15:00 PERFORMANCE Austin Nortey: The dead do not know they are dead but it’s witnessed by the living

15:00-18:00 SCREENING AND PARTICIPATORY MOVEMENT SCORE Tímea Piróth: 424_weeding - shared time and space to weed out, unearth, and transform

Friday 25.04.2025:

13:00-14:00 SCREENING Giulia Casalini and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi: Performance as Life

15:00-16:00 PERFORMANCE Ava Riby-Williams: ancient futures. music and movement as spiritual practice

17:00-18:00 PERFORMANCE, SCREENING Ncube: Reading performance from their novel: “The Nun” and screening of two short films

Saturday, April 26, 5 pm

A celebration with a concert by Angel Maxine, music performance by Kwame Brenyah, DJ AKUAKU, guests, Love and Ghanaian food

Registration for the dinner here

If you come for the dinner please register due to limited capacity and be on time (6 pm).

If you come for drinks, chats and dances no registration is needed.

Love fEAST’s aim in Ghana as well as in Berlin is to engage participants in deep conversations about love, fear, and otherness while sharing Ghanaian food, and to foster connections between local neighbors and artistic communities at the Alexanderplatz location.

Love fEAST promotes values such as hospitality, compassion, and solidarity. To create a space that is both safe and challenging, inviting reflection on social tensions and current political developments. The aim is to build bridges between queer, artistic, and local communities, to foster new alliances, and to overcome prejudice through real encounters. Va-Bene’s work addresses the alarming rise of hate movements, racism, and LGBTQIA+ hostility, particularly in Ghana. There, through the perfocraZe International Artist Residency (pIAR), she provides a safe space for queer individuals and uses art and performance as tools for solidarity and empowerment.

Saturday, May 3, 3 pm (German) and 4 pm (English)

Curatorial tour for Gallery Weekend

Saturday, May 17, 3 pm (German) and 4 pm (English)

Curatorial tour on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia

Sunday, June 1, 11 a.m.–2 p.m.

Event for BIPOC as part of the finissage

no language barrier

Register via anmeldung@ngbk.de

Queering Black Church Narratives will explore the language and symbol of The Black Church. Otis Mensah and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi will respond to the biblical text and parable and each attendee is invited to freely share their own interpretation and experience based on culturally specific reference points. The focus on Christianity as the hegemonic religion within Western Europe acts as a starting point and framework for subversion, honouring the survivors and victims of missionary colonisation pre-19th century, exploring notions of worship, church traditions, and reclaiming-symbol.

Anglicised notions of Christianity remain dominant across Western society and contemporary culture, which often hinders the nuance and flourishing-wholeness of non-monolithic Black identities in the present and in the retelling of history. Queering Black Church Narratives, therefore, takes place as an instrument of reclamation; documenting and eternising identities of Blackness & queerness, past and present, honouring Black life that is divergent from the white Christian gaze. The event strives to create a safe space for conversation, expression, retelling, and creative experimentation.

Otis Mensah is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist, writer and curator exploring the aesthetic fabric of language and cadence to evoke ethereal portraits of the body, family and notions of home. Drawing from a rich lineage of Black musicality, Otis’ poetic-sonic practice pulls multidimensional sound and text from archival material and reflections on dreaming and nature.

Concerned with an Abstractionist approach to language, Otis’ practice draws vitally from the likes of Norman Lewis and Jack Whitten, examining vivid experimentation with the materiality of paint as technique and lens for approaching text. Otis’ writing exalts the materiality of words to reveal a larger emotional landscape. By queering and subverting biblical language and parable, Otis exercises magical realism in their work, muddying the waters of memory and archival material with myth and portrayals of a Black diaspora.

Following their tenure as the first Poet Laureate of Sheffield, UK, Otis has had a diverse calibre of experience in contemporary art both as artist and curator

Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi [aka crazinisT artisT] is a trans woman with the pronoun sHit if not She. Va-Bene lives in Kumasi, Ghana but works internationally as a multidisciplinary “artivist”, curator, philanthropist, artvangelist and a mentor across several countries. She is the founder and artistic director of crazinisT artisT studiO (TTO), Our Railway Cinema Gallery (ORCG), perfocraZe International Artists Residency (pIAR) and Trans African Ambassadors Network (TAAN). All of which aimed at radicalising the arts and promoting exchange between international and local artists, activists, researchers, curators, and critical thinkers. As a performer and installation artist, crazinisT investigates gender stereotypes, prejudices, queerness, identity politics and conflicts, sexual stigma, and their consequences for marginalised groups or individuals. With rituals and a gender-fluid persona, she employs her own body as a thought-provoking tool in performances, photography, video, and installations – ‘life-and-live-art’ – confronting issues such as disenfranchisement, injustice, violence, objectification, internalised oppression, anti blackness, systemic indoctrination, and many more.

Sunday, June 1, 3 p.m.

Exhibition closing with performances, protest, and readings in public space

Exhibition space, 1st floor and various locations on Alexanderplatz

Together we walk, protest, and dance from the exhibition space through Alexanderplatz to open PRIDE month in solidarity with the Ghanaian queer community and LGBTQIA+ all over the world facing violence and discrimination through newly implemented homo and transphobic legislations, sharing queer black church narratives, a collective somatic intervention, poetic readings and hot tunes with Angel Maxine, hn. lyonga, Isabel Kwarteng-Acheampong and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi

Additional event

Friday, May 16 – Monday, May 26

Exhibition by iki yos piña, mani tapes, and wat3r mami (“Don’t hit a la negrx”) curated by BARAZANI.berlin

Location: BARAZANI.berlin, Project Space SPREEUFER, Spreeufer 6, 10178 Berlin