For a last session the jury for the Decolonial Memorial met to find the winner of the art contest at the Miriam-Makeba-Hall of Berlin Global Village, on January the 27. 2024.

The participants

As before the project team welcomed the jury members Dr. Mithu Melanie Sanyal, Gary Stewart, Sylbee Kim, Kristina Leko, and Michael Küppers-Adebisi lead by the chairman Prof. Dr. Chika Okeke-Agulu and Maria Linares as vice chairwoman. Sylbee Kim had already assumed her position as subject juror at the first session. Therefore, the project Decolonial Memorial had the honor of hosting Sonja Hohenbild as permanent deputy. More Information about the Jury. 

Further, the representatives of the shareholder organizations of Berlin Global Village Maimouna Ouattara (MoveGlobal e.V.), Silvia Werther (BER e.V.) und Akinola Famson (Afrika-Rat Berlin-Brandenburg e.V.) were among the attendees. The meeting was moderated by the external team of Óscar Ardila Luna und Stefan Krüskemper whom had tended to the art competition from the beginning, not only to guarantee absolute anonymity of the artists themselves.

The decision making process

The jury members were granted excess to the complete but anonymous concepts before the session began to prepare for the negotiations. Both concept posters, in original size, as well as accompanying texts were made available to the jury members on side.

The external coordination started the session by introducing each concept in detail to enter each to the proceedings. After appropriate appreciation of every individual concept the first vote showed there were clear favorites among the depicted artworks.

In a second round of discussion the artworks with the most votes were compared with and against each other. Here the strength and weaknesses of the concepts were evaluated in contrast. Important factors in this discussion were viability and affect. After this comprehensive, engaged, and engaging discussion another round of voting ensued. Here too the votes were clear: the jury agreed there were clear preferences. 

Preceding the final decision, the chairman asked for a statement of the Berlin Global Village shareholders to be sure to include wishes and sensitivities of the sponsors if possible. Representing for the present shareholders Akinola Famson declared their trust: “We believe in the process”. The only request was to phrase recommendations and requirements, for the artists, precisely to guarantee a smooth realization on side.

With this trust of the shareholders a third and last vote was called. The decision was unanimous. After a long day of discussion and negotiation there was a winner of the tender for the Decolonial Memorial.

We, the project Decolonial Memorial team, would like to thank everyone involved.

Find out who won the competition for the Decolonial Memorial in the next blogpost.

Pictures by Sedat Mehder.