Brotherland
Exhibition opening 14th February 2025 - 7pm
La CAVe - Cantiere delle Arti Visive
Largo Giovanni Battista Marzi, 1 - Roma
Exhibition from 14th February until 28th February 2025
Opening hours:
Monday - Friday: 3pm - 8pm
Brotherland is a visual research project about nationalism, racism, violence and broken dreams.
The focus of the project is on the experiences of former contract – Vertragsarbeiter – workers from their arrival in the GDR until the 1990s.
From the beginning of the 1960s, in order to overcome the shortage of labour, the GDR entered into bilateral agreements with other states for the employment of workers. These socialist states - Angola, Algeria, Mozambique, Cuba and Vietnam - were defined as ‚brotherlands‘.
When the Berlin Wall fell and Germany was reunited, for many it was a celebration, the achievement of freedom and the realization of something long dreamed of. For others, it was the beginning of a period that was marked by violence and fear. As is often the case, History has at least two sides.
The dissolution of the GDR was also the end of Vertragsarbeiter’s contracts. Most had to return to their homeland, but some could stay. What no one expected was that racism, which had already existed in the GDR but was more talked about behind closed doors, would become so visible and present.
In November 1990, Amadeu Antonio, a former contract worker, was murdered - it is considered to be the first racist murder in the reunified Germany. Violence and racism were an everyday experience for many, but reached a new level with the events of 1991 and 1992.
In 1991, a dormitory for contract workers in Hoyerswerda, Saxony, was attacked for days. Up to 500 onlookers stood in front of the dormitories. It was from this crowd - a crowd of ordinary people, not just neo-Nazis - that the attacks took place. In Rostock-Lichtenhagen in 1992, the home of former Vietnamese contract workers and the central reception centre for asylum applicants were attacked for five consecutive days. Rocks and firebombs were thrown at the buildings and the people inside. Up to 3,000 applauding spectators took part in the pogrom.