Exhibition “Signals of Power. Nauen, Kamina, Windhoek”
Opening: May 15, 2025
Exhibition duration: May 16 – November 2, 2025
Three Locations – Three Stories – A New Perspective on Colonial Communication Networks
In Brandenburg’s Nauen stands the world’s oldest high-power radio station still in operation today.
Together with the radio stations in Kamina (Togo) and Windhoek (Namibia), this triangle formed the German Empire’s flagship project in 1914
for expanding its colonial, imperial claims to power. Through cutting-edge global telecommunications technology,
the empire sought to secure colonial rule and establish itself as a “global player.”
The exhibition illuminates for the first time this multifaceted history from three cultural-memorial perspectives.
Featuring three artistic installations specifically conceived for this exhibition by
Tuli Mekondjo (Namibia),
Madjé Ayité (Togo), as well as
Frederike Moormann and Angelika Waniek (Germany),
new spaces are opened for individual engagement with the subject.
Three narrative films and an archive wall contextualize the historical dimension through archival materials,
some of which have never before been published.
Signals of Power of colonial communication networks continue to resonate today,
compelling us to examine how digital infrastructures, media ownership, and information sovereignty
shape our modern power dynamics and collective memory.
Tickets & Opening Hours
Tickets
Flexible – between €0 and €10
Opening Hours
Tuesday & Wednesday: 11 am – 6 pm
Thursday: 11 am – 8 pm
Friday to Sunday: 11 am – 6 pm
Public Holidays: 11 am – 6 pm
Monday: Closed
Last admission 30 minutes before closing time.
Nauen, Kamina, and Windhoek
The Large Transmitting Station in Nauen, built in 1906, is the oldest still-operating radio station in the world. From Brandenburg, Nauen continues to transmit radio and communication signals across the globe. In 1911, a test transmission was sent to Togo for the first time; by 1914, a permanent radio link had been established via Togo to Namibia.
The station in Nauen has been in continuous operation since its early days, even before the construction of the striking Muthesius building in 1920. Today, it is operated by a private company.
In contrast, only a few structures and ruins remain in Kamina (Togo), though they are considered a local landmark. In Windhoek (Namibia), just a handful of largely forgotten remnants of the station still exist. Both Kamina and Windhoek were destroyed by German troops during World War I after only a few months of operation, to prevent the technology from falling into enemy hands.
Artistic Perspectives
Tuli Mekondjo (Namibia)
Born in 1982, Tuli Mekondjo is a Namibian artist whose mixed-media practice explores colonial trauma. Her work combines archival photographs, video, embroidery, and painting. She was a DAAD fellow in 2022–23 and received the Norval Sovereign African Art Prize in 2023.
As part of Signals of Power, she stages performative rituals at historic telegraphy sites. Mekondjo lives and works in Windhoek.
Madjè Ayité (Togo)
Madjé Ayité is a Togolese filmmaker who creates documentaries focused on colonial memory. He trained in digital cinematography at the French Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA), which manages and provides public access to France’s radio and television productions.
Angelika Waniek (Deutschland)
Angelika Waniek explores the colonial history of telecommunications through performance and audio installations. Her works are created in collaboration with an international group of artists. Since 2019, she has worked with Tuli Mekondjo and Frederike Moormann on projects related to German telegraph infrastructure in Namibia.
She lives in Leipzig, where she teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts (HGB).
Frederike Moormann (Deutschland)
Frederike Moormann is a sound and radio artist whose work focuses on colonial history and audio technology. Her practice explores the material and embodied experience of audio technologies and investigates the role of media technologies in colonial and postcolonial contexts through innovative sound art projects.
She is an artistic associate at Experimental Radio at the Bauhaus University Weimar.
Transcultural Listening Map – Listening globally, remembering locally
How does the world listen? And what does listening reveal about power, history, and connection?
The Transcultural Listening Map is a digital platform that makes global listening practices and radio histories visible. Developed by the Experimental Radio unit at the Bauhaus University Weimar under the direction of Nathalie Singer, it brings together contributions from various continents and cultures.
As part of the exhibition Signals of Power, the platform is presented as a complementary offering.
The material was created as part of the two-year umbrella project “Listening to the World – 100 Years of Radio,” initiated by the Experimental Radio in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut on the occasion of 100 years of radio (art), and realized in partnership with Deutschlandfunk Kultur and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) between 2022 and 2024. It was funded by the Bauhaus University Weimar’s Creativity Fund and developed by neoanalog.
The Project Team
Prof. Dr. Dieter Daniels (Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig)
Dieter Daniels is an art historian and media theorist who has taught at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig since 1993. His research focuses on media art and radio technologies in colonial contexts.
He is co-curator of Signals of Power. Nauen, Kamina, Windhoek.
Dr. Katalin Krasznahorka (Brandenburg Museum for Future, Present, and History)
Dr. Katalin Krasznahorkai is an art historian and curator. She has curated numerous exhibitions and events and, since 2022, has directed the program at the Brandenburg Museum for Future, Present, and History. Her research focuses on the complex intersections of art and politics.
Krasznahorkai is a leading expert in the Council of Europe’s project on artistic freedom in Europe and co-curator of Signals of Power.
Dr. Mèhèza Kalibani (Curator for Colonial Past and Postcolonial Present, Foundation of Historical Museums Hamburg)
Dr. Mèhèza Kalibani is Curator for Colonial Past and Postcolonial Present at the Foundation of Historical Museums Hamburg. His research focuses on postcolonial theory, decoloniality, and colonial archives, with a particular interest in the role of sound archives in reproducing colonial narratives.
He has contributed to the project Signals of Power. Nauen, Kamina, Windhoek as a scientific advisor.
