Since 2022, a special statue has been in the citadel's display depot: the sculpture of a squatting African woman from the 1920s – without a head. The expressionistically
exaggerated and racially interpreted statue (created by Arminius Hasemann (1888 – 1979)) was to be removed from the public space in 2020 and brought to Spandau Citadel. During the preparations, it was de-capitated and smeared in June 2020. A
political debate ensued as to whether the damaged artwork should be exhibited.
In her film, Ghanaian-Nigerian artist Nnenna Onuoha processes the real questions and
arguments through a speculative legal procedure: The statue's fate is negotiated in
front of a court of Memorial Guardians. A trial ensues about what to do with the statue of the Kneeling Woman, following her defacement in Zehlendorf and relocation to the Zitadelle Museum in Spandau. While one counsel advocates that the statue be publicly displayed in the Zitadelle Spandau Museum to caution against “left-wing extremism", another argues that she should be kept in the more private Schaudepot indefinitely to educate about difficult history. Yet another argues for her to be destroyed, given the racist beliefs of her creator, the violence against her and the messiness of contextualising all this Black pain for a public.
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