Follow the tree flowers, only the tree flowers

Finissage

Foto: Delovie Kwagala aka Papa De

‘Follow the tree flowers, only the tree flowers. 
As they go, you go. You will be where you want to be when they are gone’ 
—Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987) 

In the frame of the exhibition Forgive Us Our Trespasses / Vergib uns unsere Schuld, a long evening of conversations, performances, poetry, and music is convened to provide answers to recurrent questions of fugitivity and refuge-making for queer bodies oppressed in various African geographies. Laws and social policing affecting LGBTQI+ communities enables such oppression in Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Senegal, for example. While the active erasure of queer people from their social spheres is becoming a norm, spaces of resistance, everyday life, and possible futures are nonetheless succeeding in creating much needed refuges of joy, love, and ecstasy.

The evening borrows its title from Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, where the main character’s search for freedom and liberation actively focuses on resilience and hope, which she finds across the petals of blossoming tree flowers. It is convened to highlight queer beings, community organizers, and activists whose practices are unapologetically alive despite the ongoing oppression they endure. 

As a means of imagining and enacting everyday political ways of living, acts of alliance and collective empowerment are read through the insightful work of artists performer Va-Bene Elikem-Fiatsi; filmmakers Ayo Lawson, Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim, Giulia Casalini, and DeLovie Kwagala Aka Papa De; poets and storytellers hn. lyonga, Logan February, Kwame Boateng, Damien Kwadjo Kwasie, and Jean Marie Moïse; DJ mokeyanju; as well as Berlin-based collective of community organizers Activists Choreographies of Care. The evening is introduced with a keynote lecture by acclaimed lawyer and defender of LGBTQI+ rights on the African continent, Alice Nkom, and is followed with contributions centering radical joy, as suggested in the path traced by Morrison’s tree flowers.

In the frame of Forgive Us Our Trespasses / Vergib uns unsere Schuld and heimaten

Programme

Sat., 7.12.2024 17:00
Tales of Love and Self-discovery 
Film screenings

Sat., 7.12.2024 18:00
An Ongoing Fight for LGBTQIA+ Rights in Cameroon—History, Challenges, and Perspectives
Keynote lecture Alice Nkom

Sat., 7.12.2024 18:30
Conversation on Trespassing, Fugitivity, and Joy-making
With DeLovie Kwagala Aka Papa De, Ayo Lawson & Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim, Jean Marie Moïse, moderated by Mohamed Amjahid

Sat., 7.12.2024 20:30
Sermon on the Mount
Hosted by Va-Bene Elikem-Fiatsi and Activist Choreographies of Care

Sat., 7.12.2024 23:00 
mokeyanju
DJ set

Sun., 8.12.2024 17:00
Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi: Performance as Life
Film screening followed by a conversation between Giulia Casalini and Va-Bene Elikasem Fiatsi

Next date:

• Date Saturday, 07/December/2024 17:00 bis 23:59 (1 more date)
• Venue Haus der Kulturen der Welt
• Address John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin-Tiergarten