Guindua Agbo lenou

We, Fei Zhou (media art, lives and works in Germany and China), Folly Koumouganh (photography, lives and works in Togo) and I, Meike Brackhahn (performance and film, live and work in Germany) want to realize an exhibition and performance with younger and older people in the Togolese region of Lacs, especially in the towns of Anèho and Agbodrafo. We tie in with the New Year of the Guin in southern Togo, which the locals and their diaspora ritually celebrate every year.

We artists would like to encourage reflection on the life of the people and their diaspora. We invite you to formulate epigrams about your own spiritual roots in times of migration movements in a variety of ways and with artistic impulses.

We will be organising a public discourse in the mayor's office of Aného, the seat of government for the entire Lacs region. Two academics - an anthropologist and a sociologist - as well as two representatives of the traditional religion of the Guin have been invited. Afterwards, we are planning a workshop with participants from the younger and older generations in Agbodrafo, one of the four historic communities in the region, which was once a central location for the slave trade. Together, we will realise a performance and a media exhibition.

Our ‘exposition de rue’ (street exhibition) will then travel to Agbodrafo, where it will be crowned with a concert by the local cultural centre LesChangeurs on 25 October to mark the provisional conclusion of the project.

The exhibition will return to Germany in 2025 and be shown in a number of selected municipalities in the northern region.

A documentary film will be produced at the same time using a process-orientated approach.

We will set up a YouTube channel and a Facebook group so that interested parties can join in the discussion and help shape the project.

We are planning the exhibition opening on 16 October in Aneho with the results of the workshop week together with the photo installation by Folly about the culture and religious rites of the Guin.

A forum will be created for local people to share their own memories, views and ideas.

On our social media channels Youtube and Facebook we can create a worldwide community by inviting you to participate in this process. You can follow our video about, for example, the expert panel at the Anèho Mayor's Office, which is planned for 3 and 4 October

Your ideas and suggestions can be incorporated into the project.

The photo exhibits and videos will be shown in Germany next year. Our project will be continued as an international endeavour as a parallel story to this year's edition. Here, too, the focus will be on spiritual origins with a look at the history of Christianisation in Europe, for example. Following on from the traces of the Romanesque period in a north-east German region, the examination of the roots of the participants there will also take up and integrate the lives and perspectives of the members of the Guin who migrated to Germany.

We deal with the global topic of migration by focussing on a specific section of a particular ethnic group.
We live together with people from different regions of the world. We often don't know what people bring with them from there. We often don't know how they have lived, what ties they have to their origins.

Our project offers an exclusive exploration of the topic of North-South relations and approaches it from a very personal angle. Through our artistic impulse we allow people to participate in an intensive process between local people.

With your help, we can close a funding gap of 1800 euros in our low-budget Togo Project 2024. In addition, of course, there are the costs for the purchase and dispatch of the thank-you gifts and the fees for our crowdfunding.

In addition to the travel grant of 3000 euros from the Federal Foreign Office, we have our own financial resources of 4000 euros. This secures our 6-week stay in Togo. We can organise the one-week studio together with a group of 8 participants in Agbodrafo and also pay them an appropriate daily allowance for this time. The photo presentation of Folly as a mobile installation has also been secured.

Some of the following costs are not yet covered:

Panel:

● Fees and travelling expenses for the invited experts
● Fee for accompanying camera recordings from a local studio

(450 euros)

Studio and exhibitions:

● Room rental at the LesChangeurs cultural centre
● Material costs
● Rental of equipment (monitor)
● Lunch catering for all participants

(1100 Euro)

Closing event with concert:

● Hire of equipment

(250 Euro)