The exhibition “Border Crossing Services” is the result of a collaboration between the artists Oliver Ressler and Martin Krenn and a group of students at the University of Lüneburg. Our contribution to the exhibition is a video on forms and perspectives of anti-racist resistance and a collection of critical-analytical texts. These works are based on the theoretical confrontation with the themes of racism, migration and escape in Ulf Wuggenig’s seminar on “the construction of the ’other’ in art discourse” and suggestions about the content made by the artists, who were already involved with this theme in previous projects. 

Initial ideas for a practical-artistic confrontation with the issue arose from a group visit to the German-Polish border in Frankfurt/Oder, where we gathered film material about the specific situation in this city and carried out conversations with students and lecturers from the Europa-Universität. We were able to use these experiences to prepare the other interviews that can be seen in the video, which was conceived and realized entirely as a group project. It relates thematically to the work from Krenn and Ressler, but also sets up a specific local connection. Our partners were both the “Netzwerk gegen Rechts,” which reacts directly to the situation in Lüneburg – and also members of “Kanak Attak,” a group made up mostly of immigrants which avoids established forms of identity politics and searches for new means of anti-racist resistance.

During the collaborative work with the two artists, it became clear that two aspects influenced the realization of the entire project. First, the procedural nature of the piece, i.e. content and form were not prescribed and untouchable and second, a step by step move away from hierarchies resulted so that the artists and the participants in the project were able to act as equals and thereby question and break through commonly assigned roles. Precisely because the exhibition thematisizes the latent and system dependent dimensions of racism, a discussion about similar mechanisms in the art context appeared crucial. 

In addition, we also discussed the possibilities that additional publicity could have in bringing the theme greater transparency and having more of an effect. The result of these considerations were plans to realize further events in the exhibition space to draw in an expanded audience interested in the theme. 

Tina Dust, Uta Gielke, Maja Grafe, Nina Heiniein, Patricia Holder, Mara Horstmann, Sarah Kaeberich, Nina Koch, Susanne Neubronner, Astrid Robbers, Stig Oeveraas, Sabine Zaeske
 

“Antiracist Perspectives”
A Video by the Lüneburg project group

(Transcription – excerpts from the video)

Kanak* Attak, Hamburg:
Massimo Perinelli: Kanak Attak is attempting something new, something that hasn’t previously existed in the anti-racist area. We are attempting to work productively with a contradiction, to state on the one hand that we are carrying out a type of self organization, which means that we, as Kanaken, are organizing ourselves, as people who are driven into a specific Kanakische position in Germany according to German relations. On the other hand, we also state that we are not carrying out identity politics. We don’t understand ourselves as Turks, Italians or Greeks and have no positive relationship to that. Therefore, we step away from a certain type of self organization that existed mainly at the beginning of the nineties. That means, we don't check passports, and not even those of our members. 

question: Why, then, do you still have the title Kanaken? It sounds as though you are opposed to every type of categorization – but then you repeat the term Kanaken. What is the kanakische position?

Perinelli: We aren’t opposed to every categorization because categorization exists. We take it and turn it upside down. We say, we will organize as Kanaken and understand ourselves as such. Nevertheless, in the end we refuse to explain what Kanaken are. We can’t set a definition based on blood or culture. 

Astrid Kusser: It is also an attempt to join in the game, but according to our own rules. I can't imagine a population census that includes the category “Kanake.” 

Perinelli: We can call ourselves Kanaken. However, I would certainly not let anyone else call me a Kanake. That something to determine yourself; who you are at which time, and to take this category into your own hands and turn it around. We aren't the obedient assimilated immigrants. At the same time we naturally play with this cliché, these prejudices of what Germans expect from immigrants – namely, exactly this Kanak-ghetto-gangster-thing. We use that but make our own story out of it and disappoint expectations.

Vassilis Tsianos: And it isn’t a reinterpretation either – it is mainly a provocative appropriation of a form of assigning. This is not only a form of definition, but at the same time, in the act of its implementation as performance, it sets a mark of selection which has extremely real effects on those who are “Kanakisized” as such, and in this way. It points out a paradoxical situation. The paradox is that, in reality, and that is the good part, we are not pleading for the inclusion of the category in the census. Precisely the impossibility of instrumentalizing such a category shows the paradox of these relations that function in a very real way in daily life: they create Kanaken and they also create the possibility for Kanakisized people to position themselves. Moreover, at the same time it is an extreme paradox because there is no legitimate recourse to legitimate public discourse. In addition, using this paradox, we are attempting to formulate a pole where antiracism leaves its defensive position of self organization and identity politics. We present a solid introduction, or a plea for an offensive anti-racism: with humor, hedonism and at the same time with the instrumentalization of all possible forms of medial representation which makes the relations dance, or at least in terms of categorization. And the rest is politics. 

*Pejorative word in German for a foreigner from the South