RETRIBUTION

In 2020, Berlin's Humboldt Forum announced plans to open with collections that included stolen colonial artefacts. In the midst of conversations about the repatriation of similar pieces from other institutions, the announcement was met with controversy. Philipp Groth, Creative Director and Co-Founder of acte tm, commissioned me for a guerrilla film in protest of the opening. 

My approach was to take the conversation away from the often overly academic, legal tightrope that tends to govern conversations about colonial legacy, museum provenance and repatriation. I wanted the strategic impact of emotive value. I developed a poem called Retribution as the script for the film, shaping it as the voice of the project. The poem takes the symbolic idea of a mother and symbolically confronts the colonial violence that the museum's collection came from. The aim was to solicit unease, empathy, and introduce emotional resonance to the conversation.

The project received support from Highsnobiety and König Galerie, who helped distribute and amplify the film. You can find the interview with Highsnobiety here.