To Be – Named

Names can make our ancestry and knowledge of our mother tongue visible. They are something very personal, but can also be something very political, as the abuse of power can be exercised through naming. The art exhibition "To Be - Named" at Haus Kunst Mitte, which was created in cooperation with the Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network, is dedicated to the topic of naming and the significance of names for the development or suppression of a person's identity. It is the first station of an international project that includes exhibitions on the same theme in Athens (Greece), Mexico City (Mexico) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan).

The nucleus of the exhibition is formed by six artistic positions from the USA, which will be shown at all four locations and supplemented by just as many local positions. With this approach of bringing together local and international artists, the show aims to promote a dialogue among the participating artists with different experiences and world views as well as with the audience. Furthermore, the specific discourses on the exhibition theme in the respective countries will be addressed.  

The works of Zhaoyue Fan, Jenny Irene Miller, Luz María Sánchez, Bently Spang, Keith Wilson and Elizabeth Withstandley will be shown at all exhibition venues. They deal, among other things, with the loss of identity when names are translated into another cultural context or with the efforts of indigenous cultures in North America to manifest their claim to cultural identity and attachment to territorial homelands through names and naming. 

Tuli Mekondjo, Nnenna Onuoha, Angélica Chio, Jeanno Gaussi, Katharina Schnitzler and the artist duo bellu&bellu complete this selection in Berlin. In paintings, installations, films and photographs, the artists selected for Berlin address the traces of colonial history and colonial injustice that have manifested themselves over decades through naming, image appropriation or one-sided forms of historiography.