Organization 1st Meeting Summary

Project 3: Visualization of Collaboration and Control

To Do: 

1. Read the following summary of our last meeting (10.02.2021) 
2. Think about topics, concepts, etc. you’re interested in (it would be helpful to upload this document in order to work together on it) 
3. We need a list with the mail addresses of the group members
4. Collect the information
5. Expand knowledge about backgrounds and provenance

What is our aim? How to present the photos?

• what is not in the Archive? What is not presented? 
• Contradictory and additive collage, ambivalent, different voices, different archival materials
• Online exhibition (connect with RJM) 
• Working process not final result, different knowledge forms 
• „Stay with the rouble“ 
• Adress histories of violence 
• Present: counter-narrative? 
• Reprocessing people, descendants, empowerment, bringing them back to the present 
• Restitution projects 
• Reflection on presentation: how do we present it and how do we perceive it? What has changed or not changed while working on the project?
• How is the history of the Askari received in the present? E.g. by descendants?
• Role of the museum: What is implemented in the museum where Mary works?
• how do previous scientific works / approaches work with the images? How do we see it? What would we do differently?
• Marcel Moos - Techniques of the Body
• Body medialization
• Kader Attia: Colonial Dots
• Hans Belting: Image Anthropology
• Colonial technique: Kodak film
• Dan Higgs, the British Museum
• Unlearning imperialism, Ariella Aïsha Azoulay: photography 
• Anna Brus: images of sculptures colonial era - Askari, Tanzania
• Carolin Breuer, RJM, workshop with us, meeting with her, research, how to work with photography
• Theresa ? Michi Knecht, literature about what to do with photographs of violence, for Teltow? exhibition 
• working on Askari: Stefanie Michels, Michelle Moyd (Askari soldiers - masculinity and violence) - there was a ZOOM session (accessible via YouTube, Link?) 
• Mary Mbewe: Moto Moto museum, Tanzania, research of aspects  - [email protected]

Which photos?

• Which photos still exist? (e.g. in the RJM)
• In which places were the photos taken?
• The photos themselves: Awards or uniforms - what do the pictures reveal? Where do the soldiers come from (e.g. Sudan)?
• What can be identified in the photos?
• why are these images shown
• Who is depicted, what is their stories
• Why are some of the askaris not wearing shoes? Contrary to the uniform? Or subversive practice?
• Fez: not actually part of the uniform, but appears in some photos - what can we infer from this?

Historical Background?  

• Source research
• recommended: read Jacob’s Essay on PECE
• Origins of the Askari (Sudan? There are hints in the „Reichstagsprotokolle“)
• „Schutztruppe“ per se 
• Which actors are important?
• How were the Askari organized?
• Colonial motives and ideology
• "Big man" Askari as initiation ritual; What were the initiation rituals?
• Myth of the "loyal Askari" - what image did they have? How were they instrumentalized politically and ideologically?
• Historical Archive in Cologne, Magazine „Kolonie und Heimat“ (1907/08) - what can be extracted? What is the significance of the photos of Askari in the magazine?
• Kader Attia: role of French, colonial soldiers were used against own population
• Descendents of Askari - finding about personalities?
• Cotton 
• Sucuma, ranks on soldiers, German officer and askari - objects to make country fertile again
• Connection to slavery - slavery as African problem 
• Racism

Wednesday - 24.02.2021 Group-Meeting

Thursday    - 25.03.2021 Meeting with Anna Brus?