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Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen: Schwarze Leute – Reclaiming Memories

Schwarze Leute – Reclaiming Memories is a belated look into the files. Soon after the Second World War, Afro-German children were born in postwar Germany: children of white German women and Black soldiers of the US Army. Politicians and public authorities declared these children a problem and made sure that many of them did not grow up with their families, but were placed in children’s homes or sent abroad.

Many of these life stories began in West Berlin, but also in Frankfurt am Main, Mannheim, Stuttgart—everywhere within the American sphere of influence. To this day, this part of German postwar history has barely been researched.

What began in Unauthorized and Unverschämt (Sophiensæle, 2024) as biographical research, Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen now expand into an investigation of institutional racism in the early Federal Republic. How was such a thing possible after the end of National Socialism—and how do we find a language that spares those affected while sparing nothing in its reckoning with a largely indifferent society?

Schwarze Leute asks how the history of bureaucratic violence is handled today: it asks about missing transparency, institutional inertia, and the emotional toll on those who, even after decades, are still denied access to their files.

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CONTENT NOTE

Concept, text, performance: Simone Dede AyiviSound, music: Johannes BirlingerSet design: Lani Tran-DucCostume design: Mariama SowSet & costume assistance: Luca PlaumanVideo: Jones Seitz, Fine FreibergDramaturgy: Jens HilljeOutside eye: Bahar MeriçProject assistance: Charlotte RosengarthTechnical direction: Lui MarschewskiLighting, special effects: Frieder MillerPress: Sarah RosenauProduction management: Anna Mareike Holtz & Sandra Klöss (ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro)

A production by Simone Dede Ayivi & Kompliz*innen in co-production with Sophiensæle. Funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion and the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.

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