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Counter-mapping Days: Mapping to connection

Come join us for three days of workshops and exchange, using movement, sound, taste and touch as wayfinding tools.


When:
Friday, 12.07.2024, 18:00-21:00
Saturday 13.07.2024, 11:00-18:00
Sunday, 14.07.2024, 11:00-18:00
Where:
Amo Salon / Institut für Europäische Ethnologie
Anton-Wilhelm-Amo Straße (formerly M-Straße) 40/41
10117 Berlin

Registration for the event & workshops HERE

Detailed program ︎


The Counter-mapping Days will be a joyful, playful response to the Berlin Conference and an opportunity for us to pause, reflect, and reimagine a collective future. Over three days of worskshops, we will use mapping and wayfinding to bring communities together – as a thread that weaves us back to ourselves, to each other, and to this world. We use maps not to erase and divide but to reveal and connect. 

The Counter-mapping Days are inspired by the Afro-German Enlightenment philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo and joyous Afro-diasporic, queer, mestizo, and anti-ableist expressions. We will turn into a space for immersive experiences that combines workshops and activities with spaces for contemplation and connection. Together, we will learn to navigate multiple forms of knowledge toward personal transformation and solidarity.

Detailed program 


Friday July 12th
Time: 18-21

Counter-mapping the Akan Experience: Unraveling the Impact of the Berlin Conference

Facilitator: Kwame Aidoo

Our counter-mapping journey begins with Anton Wilhelm Amo´s Akan (Nzema) community.  Using their experiences as a guiding framework we examine how the conference divided the Akan community across different countries and languages giving us valuable insight into the broader impact of the conference on communities across Africa.

Ghanaian artist, performer, and researcher Kwame Aidoo delves into Akan culture, philosophy, and cosmology before and after the Berlin Conference.  We seek to understand the lasting effects of colonialism and honor the resilience and genius of the Akan community in preserving their cultural identity and connections.

Saturday July 13th

Workshop 1 : Time: 11-16

Food for thought: Tasting to connection

Facilitator: Uriara Maciel

Food for Thought invites participants to mindfully explore food, ingredients, and cooking practices to deepen our understanding of our personal histories, cultural heritage, and connections to each other.  The workshop encourages participants to savor the flavors, stories, and traditions behind various cuisines fostering a deeper appreciation of how food unites us.


Workshop 2: Time: 11-16

Joyful Movement

Facilitator: Quincy Junor

A celebration of black queer music and space-making/freedom practice. In this workshop, we engage with movement/dancing as a spiritual practice, and the dance floor as a hallowed space. Music and movement become maps, wayfinding, centering, and archive.

LUNCH
Time: 13-14

Time: 16-18

ReMemorying


Using your post-workshop experience to...
Map, Wayfind, Dance, Explore, Rest, Dream


Sunday July 14th


Workshop 1: Time: 11-13

Choral Workshop

Facilitator: Amanda Becker

Experience the power and scope of individual and collective connection through our voices. Led by classical & jazz singer Amanda Becker, participants will experience the deep pleasure of vocal sound. At the July 1st preview she will be singing songs from her latest project based on bell hooks´ book All About Love.


LUNCH BREAK 13-14


Workshop 2: Time: 15-18

Collective Wayfinding with Melody Howse & Moses März


Bringing our intelligences together Melody and Moses will facilitate the communal creation of counter-mapping strategies and practices.  Based on their sensory input from Saturday´s workshops we will convene artists, activists, and community members to make new signage, maps, expressions, gestures, and ways to highlight our interconnection. From there we make our way to freedom.  Freedom is a place!


TEAM

The curatorial and production efforts for the Counter-mapping Days: Mapping to connection are being led by Nicole Pearson and Letícia Da Rosa, in collaboration with a dedicated core team from the Counter-Mapping Project and members of the Amo Collective, including Carla J. Maier, Julia Seibert, Ingri Pavezi, Adela Taleb, Magdalena Buchczyk, Regina Römhild, Piero Trias, Melanie Garland, hn.lyonga, Eryn Staiblin, Ren Loren Britton and Flora Corinna Ohlberger. Special thanks are extended to the documentation team: Inti Gallardo, Pablo Hassmann, Kika Echeverria, Imad Gebrael for his graphic design contributions and Christian Maier in the technical set-up.