The Political Garden
Talk
January 15, 2023, 7:00 pm
A talk with Karamba Diaby, MP, and Karina Griffith, moderated by Sylvie Kürsten.
Diaby and Griffith have one thing in common — they both have a »Schrebergarten«, a central subject of the exhibitions by Wolfgang Mattheuer and Stan Douglas. The conversation explores the sociopolitical dimension of gardens in urban spaces, engaging topics such as landscape and cityscape in a constructive dialogue.
A prior visit of the exhibition is possible from 6pm and included in the event ticket. The talk will be held in German.
Wolfgang Mattheuer, The Neighbor Who Wants to Fly, 1984. Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art, Budapest, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022, Photo: József Rosta / Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art
Play
Karamba Diaby, Photo: Steffen Schellhorn
Karamba Diaby, born in 1961 in Marsassoum, Senegal, was the first African-born Black person elected to the German Bundestag in 2013. From 2009 to 2015, he was a city council member in Halle (Saale) and from 2011 until 2013 worked as an advisor in the Saxony-Anhalt Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs. He came to the GDR in his mid-twenties thanks to a scholarship, studied chemistry at the Martin Luther University in Halle- Wittenberg, and earned a doctorate in geo-ecology. Thereafter, he worked in different nonprofit organizations in the fields of education, youth politics, diversity, and human rights. Diaby was a member of the German Bundestag in the eighteenth and nineteenth legislative periods. From 2018 to 2021, he was also the Integration Commissioner of his party and a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary group’s executive committee. Diaby entered the Bundestag again in 2021.
Karina Griffith, supported by the Canada Council of the Arts, is the current Artist Research Fellow at DAS MINSK in the framework of the Stan Douglas exhibition. For the catalogue accompanying the opening exhibitions, she spoke with the activist Joshua Kwesi Aikins about a Schrebergarten community in Berlin-Wedding, formerly named »Dauerkolonie Togo.«
Karina Griffith’s films and installations have been shown at international galleries and festivals, and she has curated film and transdisciplinary programs for the Goethe- Institut, Berlinale Forum & Forum Expanded, alpha nova and galerie futura, and VTape, among others. In 2021, she curated the first Black Reels Festival of German films with Black Art Action Berlin and is an active member of the Schwarze Filmschaffende Community.
© Karina Griffith
Sylvie Kürsten, Photo: Philipp Baben der Erde
Sylvie Kürsten, born 1979 in Berlin, is an independent cultural journalist and has worked as a documentary filmmaker since 2011. For the film Venus auf Abwegen from the 3sat-series Kunst und Verbrechen, she and her team received the 2016 Grimme-Preis. In 2020, she released Kunst aus der DDR: Vom Westen gehasst, vom Westen geliebt, a one-hour audio feature commissioned by the WDR. The cultural researcher also moderates from time to time and supports the initiative »Wir sind der Osten.«