Finissage: “Signals of Power” – Colonial Protocols V1
Artist Talk & presentation of an artistic research-based video work – with Namibian artist Mark Mushiba (Namibia/Berlin) · preceded by a guided tour through the exhibition “Signals of Power. Nauen, Kamina, Windhoek” · live musical-performance by Gugulethu Duma (South Africa/Berlin)
The evening begins with a guided tour through the exhibition “Signals of Power. Nauen, Kamina, Windhoek” with co-curators Prof. Dr. Dieter Daniels and Dr. Katalin Krasznahorkai.
This is followed by the presentation of an artistic research-based video work by Mark Mushiba, developed within the framework of the exhibition. The video work grew out of a shared dérive/drift through the grounds of the former wireless station in Windhoek: participants approached the site without prior context and recorded impressions and personal counter-messages “from Windhoek to Nauen” – a symbolic reversal of the historic one-way signal flow. Voices, environmental sounds, and traces of the landscape are woven into a reflection on memory, infrastructure, and power. The presentation is accompanied by a public Artist Talk with the curators.
To conclude the evening, South African musician, composer, and performing artist Gugulethu Duma (aka Dumama) presents a live performance — a “sonic intervention” exploring embodied intangible cultural heritage and the spiritual impulses embedded within radiophonic colonialism. Themes of baptism by fire and blood intersect with ideas of healing and resonance across traumatised bodies and territories still marked by transmitted colonial frequencies.
This presentation brings the exhibition to a close while at the same time opening space for future artistic reflection on questions of communication, power, infrastructure, and postcolonial entanglements.
Programme Overview
16:00–16:30, 1st floor – Tour through the exhibition “Signals of Power. Nauen, Kamina, Windhoek”
With co-curators Prof. Dr. Dieter Daniels (HGB Leipzig) and Dr. Katalin Krasznahorkai (Brandenburg Museum).
16:30–17:30, Brandenburg Exhibition – Artist Talk & Presentation of an artistic research-based video work by Namibian artist Mark Mushiba
Conversation with Mark Mushiba, Prof. Dr. Dieter Daniels (co-curator, HGB Leipzig), and Dr. Katalin Krasznahorkai (co-curator, Brandenburg Museum).
17:30–18:00, 1st floor – Live musical-performance by Gugulethu Duma (South Africa/Berlin)
From 18:00, 1st floor – Closing with drinks at the museum
Please note
The Finissage will take place in both English and German.
The Artist Talk and the video work by Mark Mushiba will be in English (the film includes German subtitles).
The guided tour through the exhibition will be in German.
Admission
Free entry, registration recommended
About Mark Mushiba
Mark Mushiba is a Namibian multidisciplinary artist, street poet, rapper, and technologist based in Berlin. He currently works as a researcher at Forensis (Forensic Architecture), where he investigates the intersections of space, memory, and colonial violence. His artistic research engages with the ecological and infrastructural legacies of German colonialism in Namibia, including contributions to Inherited Testimonies and The Environmental Continuum of Genocide in Namibia. Mushiba is a founding member of the award-winning hip-hop poetry group Black Vulcanite. His practice develops Afro-Accelerationist Visions — concepts that frame radical technological adoption by African communities as a means of empowerment and critique of global power structures.
About Gugulethu Duma (aka Dumama)
Gugulethu Duma (South Africa/Berlin) is a musician, composer, cultural researcher, and performing artist. Her work explores the deconstruction of traditional sonic and performative representations in African culture, merging ancestral songs, field recordings, and electronic sounds into immersive performances. Her practice moves between ritual, storytelling, and sonic experimentation and has been presented internationally, including at SAVVY Contemporary, Gropius Bau, Humboldt Forum, and Zeitz MOCAA.