Sandrine Micossé-Aikins
Guest Author
Sandrine Micossé-Aikins is a curator, art theorist and political activist. In her various work fields she seeks to encourage and analyse discourses about the relationship between art and power. Her Projects include the lecture series "Re/Positioniserung: Critical Whiteness/Perspectives of Color" (2009) and the follow-up exhibition "Making Mirrors" (2010), both taking place at NGBK Berlin. From 2008–2012 she co-curated and supervised the project Prèt-à-Partager for the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations. She also is one of the editors of the anthology "The Little Book of Big Visions: How to Be an Artist and Revolutionize the World". Sandrine Micossé-Aikins is currently a PhD candidate at the Muthesius Art School in Kiel.
THIS AUTHOR WROTE
Sandrine Micossé-Aikins is a curator, art theorist and political activist. In her various work fields she seeks to encourage and analyse discourses about the relationship between art and power. Her Projects include the lecture series "Re/Positioniserung: Critical Whiteness/Perspectives of Color" (2009) and the follow-up exhibition "Making Mirrors" (2010), both taking place at NGBK Berlin. From 2008–2012 she co-curated and supervised the project Prèt-à-Partager for the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations. She also is one of the editors of the anthology "The Little Book of Big Visions: How to Be an Artist and Revolutionize the World". Sandrine Micossé-Aikins is currently a PhD candidate at the Muthesius Art School in Kiel.
December 4, 2013
A lot has been said and written in the recent months about the use of blackface in German theatre (and other cultural) productions. Mainstream positions that keep surfacing in these debates are based almost without exception on a deep lack of critical knowledge about Germany’s colonial past as well as the history of blackface, but also the complete underestimation of the power inherent to images and words. At the same time, the intensity of the reactions to anti-racist criticism in the cultural domain suggests, that there is indeed a, if subconscious, awareness of a historical “right” to psychological and corporeal violence against (former) colonial subjects that is now being endangered. This essay challenges four of the most popular misconceptions about this subject by taking a deeper look at the intrinsically linked mechanisms of identity, race and representation in Germany.