Investigations of the traces of cultural and economical exchange between China and Africa, in which Europe long ago ceased to be actively involved.
Economic and political relations between the People’s Republic of China and numerous countries on the African continent have intensified greatly over the past two decades. The economic and geopolitical consequences of this development have been a topic of international discussion for some time.
However, the cultural concomitants have been largely ignored. The curators and theorists Christian Hanussek and Jochen Becker have joined the experimental film-maker Daniel Kötter, whose work “Kredit” premiered at steirischer herbst in 2013, to visit cultural transfer sites between China and Africa to conduct field research.
In their show they present initial research findings, theories, anecdotes and video works from Lubumbashi or Lagos, examining “Chinafrican” activity in the Copper Belt, in the frontier region of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and reporting on the markets of Hong Kong or around Johannesburg. The view of Chinese miners in Chingola or African street food vendors on Baohan Zhijie, the “African Street” in Guangzhou, round off the survey of a global process that will also fundamentally change the cultural imagination of Europe.
Concept Jochen Becker, Christian Hanussek & Daniel Kötter
With Jochen Becker & Daniel Kötter
With support from TURN & Goethe-Institut Lagos
steirischer herbst
Project management Roland Gfrerer
Jochen Becker (DE)
Jochen Becker lives in Berlin. As well as being an editor and author (e.g. “Kabul/Teheran 1976ff”, 2006), Becker works as a curator (e.g. “Urban Cultures of Global Players”, 2012) and university lecturer (since 2014 at the Royal Institute of Art Stockholm, for instance). In addition he was artistic director of the “Global Players Project” at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin in 2012. In 2007 his focus on urban culture led to him co-founding metroZones, an independent association for critical city research. Both interdisciplinary and supraregional, the project is located on the interface of art, science and politics. Its objective is to focus on the public treatment and politicisation of urban issues, everyday worlds and conflicts.
Christian Hanussek (DE)
Christian Hanussek was born in 1953 in Frankfurt am Main, and lives and works as an author, curator and multimedial artist in Berlin. Following his studies of art and art theory in Frankfurt and Haarlem/Netherlands, Hanussek has worked primarily with elements taken from painting, installation and video art. He additionally concentrates on the promotion of African art, such as his regular collaborations with painter and sculptor Salifou Lindou from Cameroon. In 2001 he co-founded “Laboratoire Déberlinisation” with Mansour Ciss Kanakassy and Baruch Gottlieb. The aim of this Berlin-based project is to foster dialogue between North and South. Hanussek is also active as a member of the urban science art initiative metroZones.
Daniel Kötter (DE)
Daniel Kötter was born in 1975 in Bergisch Gladbach, and works as a director, film-maker and video artist. From 1996 to 2001 he studied music and theatre with philosophy in Berlin and went on to concentrate on the blending of techniques in structuralist experimental films on the one hand, and performative and documentary elements on the other. The resulting works were in many cases funded by the German Goethe Institute and shown internationally within the context of numerous film and video art festivals and also in galleries and concert halls. Kötter’s six-part experimental documentary film series “state-theatre” (2009-2014), for example, was produced and presented in Nigeria, Iran and the USA, among other countries. He is currently collaborating with composer Hannes Seidl on a musical theatre project “Ökonomien des Handelns 1-3” (begun in 2013), the first part of which, “Kredit”, premiered at steirischer herbst in 2013.