Katrin Michel, from the Comic „Mystery of Foreign Affairs“, 2017–2018
The starting point for Katrin Michel’s collection of materials “Mystery of Foreign Affairs” is an analysis of the history of the Mozambican contract workers in the former GDR. Impressions gathered on a research journey to Johannesburg in early 2017 and the booming yet socialist- marked and architecturally collapsing inner city of Maputo, as well as conversations with the so-called “Madgermanes” form part of the work. For the exhibition in Maputo in the summer of 2018, Michel will present a comic and graphic essay, in which montage-like narrative sequences will be alternated with picture presentations. In this she will combine her own experience of Africa with historical facts and theses on the neo-colonial aspects of the GDR’s foreign policy relations with Mozambique. Through the voice of the Western narrator, one’s own cultural identity as well as a racism subtly anchored in everyday life will be called into question.
Katrin Michel, from the Comic „Mystery of Foreign Affairs“, 2017–2018
Katrin Michel, from the Comic „Mystery of Foreign Affairs“, 2017–2018
Katrin Michel, from the Comic „Mystery of Foreign Affairs“, 2017–2018
The starting point for Katrin Michel’s collection of materials “Mystery of Foreign Affairs” is an analysis of the history of the Mozambican contract workers in the former GDR. Impressions gathered on a research journey to Johannesburg in early 2017 and the booming yet socialist- marked and architecturally collapsing inner city of Maputo, as well as conversations with the so-called “Madgermanes” form part of the work. For the exhibition in Maputo in the summer of 2018, Michel will present a comic and graphic essay, in which montage-like narrative sequences will be alternated with picture presentations. In this she will combine her own experience of Africa with historical facts and theses on the neo-colonial aspects of the GDR’s foreign policy relations with Mozambique. Through the voice of the Western narrator, one’s own cultural identity as well as a racism subtly anchored in everyday life will be called into question.