As part of Displayed Words, CCA Berlin invites you to a conversation with Hassan Khan and Antonia Alampi on 31 Jan, at 6 PM. The conversation will take as a starting point the commissioned text work Totem & Taboo by Hassan Khan for Displayed Words, exhibited in April 2024 at Rathaus Tiergarten.

The event will take place in the Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Saal of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Potsdamer Straße 33. The conversation will be in English. Free entry, no registration required.

According to the New York Times, in 2013 for his first creative meeting with his new employers, American Hip-Hop artist Kanye West walked into a meeting room at the Adidas Headquarters near Nuremberg and drew a swastika. This incident and the ten years of collaboration that followed between rapper and German corporation provide the content that acclaimed artist, musician and writer Hassan Khan used for his recent work: Totem & Taboo; the starting point of this conversation with Artistic and Executive Director of Spore Initiative, Antonia Alampi.

Hassan Khan will draw connections and associations; cite Interventions, texts, songs and other elements to help urgent questions like: Why is it now necessary to process the political? And what kind of toxicity underlies the liberal claims of societies unable to truly come to terms with their history?