Activist Choreographies of Care
29 March – 1 June 2025
Opening: 28 March 2025, 7 pm

Press preview: 28 March 2025, 11 am
Please register by email to presse@ngbk.de

Activist Choreographies of Care: perfocraZe International Artist Residency opens at nGbK on March 28. The project 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.

Activist Choreographies of Care 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 serves as a space to meet, engage, exchange and share food. In this spirit, the opening night will feature performances by the participating artists. In April and May, the program continues with open studios, a movie night, a performance marathon, workshops, and the Love fEAST. The Love fEAST is an annual dinner and dance party that bridges the gap between artists, queer families, and local communities in Kumasi.

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

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

About the Works

Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi’s (crazinisT artisT) Monument of Second Skin consists of used clothing identified as feminine and non-binary, which pIAR’s founder has been collecting for her rituals, installations, and performances prior to her transition. In her studio in Kumasi, she built a vast, intimate installation as a sanctuary, wardrobe, and monument of second skin, which she now reimagines for the exhibition. The installation also features Va-Bene’s Ritual of Becoming, from her froZen series, where she photographically documented her daily cleansing rituals, dressing, and putting on makeup.

The immersive textile and sound installation TIME BOMB by Marcella “Naa” Nuerkie Akuetteh combines leftover fabric and scraps of diverse colors, patterns and shapes collected in Kumasi and Berlin. The accompanying audio installation features voices from pIAR, which highlight the threats and potential consequences of the pending anti-LGBTQIA+ bill in Ghana. German-Ghanaian artist Sarah Ama Duah’s sculpture MOTHER OF MANY explores the relationship between history and its manifestation in artifacts of cultural memory, sharing Afro-diasporic experience and perspective.

Rüzgâr Buşki’s & Mawuenya Amudzi’s print installation honors activists and figures from the Ghanaian queer communities. Buşki’s series of prints relates to protest banners created during a protest against the anti-LGBTQIA+ bill in front of the Ghanaian embassy in Berlin, while Amudzi’s image transfer technique bridges past and present, emphasizing the layered nature of memory. Martin Toloku’s sculptural and sound installation Yali invites viewers into a ritual of storytelling. Seven human heads, buried in the ground, echo the artist’s fascination with the sometimes mysterious relationship between time and material, and how stories are hidden in objects.

Choreographer Julius Yaw Quansah and composer Anthony R. Green weave movement, sound, and text into a multimedia installation inspired by the Adinkra symbol Hye Anhye (that, which does not burn). Na wo pɛ sɛ me hye, na nso me nhye da (You wished me burnt, but I will never burn) is all at once an affirmation of queer and Black care, and a prayer for strength, resistance, and solidarity amongst Africans everywhere, standing up against  systems of racism, classism, capitalism, and colonialism that have attempted to burn the existence of Blackness, African-ness, and queerness.

Akpene Akosua Deku’s L)L) (Love in Ewe) explores the complexity of human bonds and the barriers that society creates to separate people. One side of the installation flourishes with vibrancy, while the other bears the scars of neglect. In a world marked by division, this installation serves as a reminder of love and community’s healing potential. Rebecca Pokua Korang’s & Efia Serwah’s textile and sound installation On Murmurs and Mouthfuls explores the intersections of food, colonialism, and queer intimacy. Drifting between visibility and obscurity, the installation queers the act of storytelling, inviting visitors to step inside.

Austin Nortey’s work combines second-hand textiles and corroded metal scrap traces, while Chie Marquart-Tabel’s semi-figurative, mystical formal language runs through cardboard sculptures and a quilt in the exhibition space. By inviting viewers to lie on the quilt, observe the movements of the sculptures and follow the poetic sound installation by Bodi Babatola, Marquart-Tabel’s & Nortey’s Defining Survival (Queer Everexistence in Motion) offers a place of arrival and rest.

Public Program

Friday, 28 March 2025, 7 pm
Exhibition opening
with the performance TIME BOMB by Marcella Nuerkie Akuetteh and a concert performance by Anthony R. Green & Julius Yaw Quansah, a.o.
In English and German

Friday, 18 April 2025, 12 pm
Protest performance
by Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi
In Ewe (no language barrier)

Saturday, 19 April 2025, 7 pm
Performance Marathon
by the K++V Swarm and invited guests
In English and German

Tuesday–Friday, 22–25 April 2025, 2–6 pm
Open studios, screenings, workshops, readings, discussions
with pIAR alumni, Jasmin Rolli, Austin Nortey, Kwame Brenyah, Mawuenya Amudzi and guests
In English and German

Tuesday, 22 April 2025, 7 pm
pIAR Movie
Film screening with short films by artists and activists affiliated with pIAR
In English

Saturday, 26 April 2025, 5 pm
Love fEAST
Dinner with Ghanaian food, concert by Angel Maxine, music performance by Kwame Brenyah, DJs
In English and German

Saturday, 3 May 2025, 3 pm (in German) and 4 pm (in English)
Curatorial tour
on the occasion of Gallery Weekend

Saturday, 17 May 2025, 3 pm (in German) and 4 pm (in English)
Curatorial tour
on the occasion of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia

Sunday, 1 June 2025, 11 am–2 pm
Queering Black Church Narratives
Event for BIPOC
Registration via anmeldung@ngbk.de

Sunday, 1 June 2025, 3 pm
Exhibition closing, performances, protest, and readings in public space
from the exhibition space through Alexanderplatz to open PRIDE month
with Angel Maxine, Damien Kwadjo, hn. lyonga, Isabel Kwarteng-Acheampong, Kwame Boateng, Otis Mensah, and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi
In English

Affiliated event:
Friday, 16 May – Monday, 26 May 2025
Exhibition
with iki yos piña, mani tapes, and wat3r mami (Dont hit a la negrx), curated by BARAZANI.berlin
BARAZANI.berlin, Projektraum SPREEUFER, Spreeufer 6, 10178 Berlin

nGbK am Alex
Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 11/13, 10178 Berlin, 1st floor (access via escalator)
Opening hours: Tue–Sun 12–6 pm, Fri 12–8 pm
Accessible with wheelchairs and strollers (via elevator)
Free admission
Information for visitors is available here.

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.