Important Dates

Exhibition

From Oblivion to Memory 

Transatlantic Memorial Echoes

When: 

Opening: Thursday, 15 May 2025

Closing: Thursday, 31 July 2025

Where: Iwalewahaus

In West African countries, the slave trade is generally only present in institutionalised places of memory created for this purpose, such as the Maison des esclaves in Gorée (Senegal) or the Door of No Return in Ouidah (Benin). Alternatively, memory has been passed down through coded stories and songs, which exist alongside UNESCO sites and museums. These vernacular expressions of memory, deeply rooted in the cultural and spiritual fabric of communities, reveal a unique depth often overshadowed by institutionalised spaces.

The exhibition brings together sound and visual fragments from Togo and Benin, enabling an immersion in the memorial echoes of the transatlantic slave trade. The tree of oblivion is at the center of the exhibition space, as well as the idea of transatlantic travelling fragments and echoes. The songs and stories from West Africa are accompanied by photographs and video clips from South America to link the sound echoes to an iconography of the memory of capture and enslavement.

This exhibition offers a multi-stage audiovisual journey within a dark, enclosed space. The successive illumination of each stage symbolises the resurfacing of fragmented, repressed memories. Designed as a journey through time and the imagination, the exhibition delves into the depths of a traumatic memory that, over time, transforms into a therapeutic one. Through images, artefacts, and oral testimonies on the history of the slave trade, it explores the methods and mechanisms behind the ruthless pursuit, capture, and deportation of Sub-Saharan Africans. By retracing this traumatic episode, each stage of the exhibition contributes to shaping a therapeutic expression of this memory, shedding light on aspects often absent from official narratives yet deeply embedded in the collective memory and consciousness of West Africa.

These experiences and fragments of memory do not only resurface in contemporary Africa but also find echoes in South America. Video clips and texts by Colombian choreographer Lobadys Perez, along with oral tradition narratives from Salvador de Bahia—adapted into comic strips depicting the Orixás of Bahia by Brazilian artist Hugo Canuto—engage in dialogue with the fragments of memory explored in the exhibition. The Dark Chamber, reminiscent of the hold of slave ships and the imposed silence of oblivion, serves as a powerful space for this exchange.