Five Exhibits

The Mamo, the spiritual guides of the Kogi, request the return of their masks from Dahlem. They want to work with them to combat global warming. But the answer from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is: ‘We know how to store the masks. We know what significance these masks have for the cultural heritage of mankind, what value they have. We have the knowledge, and you are what we exhibit in the museum as plaster casts.

‘Five Exhibits’ is a plea against the division between civilisation and barbarism, knowledge and superstition, us and them. The starting point is Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), who gained access to local knowledge through his encounters with intellectuals, farmers and indigenous people. The performers Laia Ribera Cañénguez, Antonio Cerezo and Yahima Piedra Cordova explain how the colonial rewritings as the ‘Humboldt Current’ or ‘Humboldt Penguin’ continue to have an effect today. They work with potatoes and plaster: potatoes as successfully integrated migrants, metaphors for origin, malleability, the quality of adaptability. Plaster for the cheap reproduction of stolen Latin American artefacts now exhibited in European museums. The musician Yahima Piedra Córdova drives the stage action with a mixture of classical music (and its colonial overtones), electronic sounds and Latin American rhythms. The live visuals by video artist Daniela del Pomar provide do­cumentary insights into the exhibits on stage, lead microscopically into the hidden inner world of potato plants and plaster and follow Humboldt's journey and its performative deconstruction.

The KMZ Kollektiv has been working since 2021 and negotiates the relationship between Germany and Latin America in its projects. The first production, ‘Kaffee mit Zucker?’ (2021), deals with German immigration to Central America and its economic and political power based on coffee and sugar. She was a guest at Wunder. in 2022. ‘Fünf Exponate’ (2023) is the second pro­duction by KMZ Kollektiv.