Deberlinizing the Arts: The Art Works of Mansour Ciss Kanakassy

Abstract

This article by Myriam Odile Blin analyzes the art practices of Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, an artist born in Senegal, living in Berlin since 2001. There, he creates the Laboratory of Deberlinzation referring to the famous Congo conference in Berlin of 1884–1885, where the “Scramble for Africa” was initiated. By choosing this name, the artist accentuates the persisting colonial legacies and the ongoing humiliation of African people due to the dependency of the national currency on the Euro or the unequal right of personal mobility. With the wish to counter these tendencies and to autonomize African persons, Kanakassy invents an African currency, the Afro, and a Global pass for the world, allowing everybody to move freely. Blin also reads these aesthetico-political practices as a precursor to the decolonial engagement in arts and theory of today.

Si chaque culture est un monde, elles ont toutes en commun d’apparaître sur le fond englobant d’un monde qui les constitue dans l’horizon de leur déploiement.

Bado Ndoye (2017)