“If I Didn’t Define Myself For Myself, I Would Be Crunched Into Other People’s Fantasies For Me And Eaten Alive.”

Auf Englisch

A Self Portraiture Workshop for PAD-Community*

With Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju (Visual artist) and Anna Yeboah (Architect and Curator, and part of the Nicht Einfach-Team)

Taking its title from Audre Lorde’s seminal 1982 speech “Learning from the Sixties”, this workshop by Nigerian-American artist Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju and Anna Yeboah explores the expansive potential of self-portraiture as a practice of self-knowledge, healing, and cultural critique for Black people and people of African descent. Through the use of reference images, writing, and drawing, participants will experiment with portraiture as a way to deconstruct and reimagine broader paradigms of identity.

Each participant is asked to bring one image they consider to be a self-portrait, however literal or symbolic. Using this image as a starting point, participants will receive a series of prompts and instructions to guide their drawings, which they may follow, resist, or reimagine altogether. The workshop will conclude with a collective sharing and discussion of the works created.

This workshop is exclusively intended for Black people and people of African descent. We kindly ask that this collective self-identification and the spaces connected to it be respected. The workshop will be predominantly held in English, with the option of translation into German. No prior knowledge or skills are required.

Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju (she/her) is a Nigerian-American artist and writer based in Berlin. Working across painting, writing, performance and installation, she balances intimate experiences of connection, violence, and healing against broader considerations of cultural distortion and identity. She graduated with distinction from New York University, where she studied studio art and social and cultural analysis. She is also an alumna of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She is currently a participant in the BPA// Berlin Program for Artists.

Instagram:  @monilola

Anna Yeboah (she/her) is an architect and curator. In her exhibitions, lectures and interdisciplinary projects, she deals with power systems in built space, memory culture and the decolonisation of architectural and cultural praxis. From 2020 to 2024, she coordinated the pilot project Dekoloniale Erinnerungskultur in der Stadt - Decolonial Culture of Remembrance in the City for the Initiative of Black People in Germany e.V., which deals with the critical processing, mediation and remembrance of colonialism originating in Berlin. As part of the Nicht Einfach (Not Easy) specialists team, Anna Yeboah conceived the content of this event together with the artist.

Instagram: @annakoma

This event is spart of the pluralistic Discourse Programme Not Easy: It invites dialogue on plural perspectives within contemporary German memory discourse and social coexistence. Starting from the life and work of the artist Irma Stern (1894–1966), it explores the complex entanglements of antisemitism, colonialism and racism. The programme encourages participants to expand their perspective on Stern’s ambivalent experiences between persecution and exile as a Jewish German woman, as well as her privileges as a white South African.

Developed by Ahmad Dakhnous, Tahir Della, Anna Yeboah and Yehudit Yinhar, accompanied by Pegah Byroum-Wand and Daniela Bystron.

* People of African Descent is an internationally used term that encompasses all people who have their roots in Africa, regardless of where they live today. The term originated in the context of the UN and international human rights debates to highlight and specifically address the diversity, history and experiences of discrimination faced by people of African descent.

Aufgrund begrenzter Teilnehmer*innen-Zahl bitten wir hier um eine Anmeldung. Die Teilnahme an öffentlichen Veranstaltungen ist im Museumseintritt enthalten. Treffpunkt: Kasse im Foyer.