With a lecture performance by Teddy Mazina followed by a discussion

On 4 February 1972, customs officials at Brussels Zaventem Airport seized several boxes destined for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The police were alerted. The boxes contained hundreds of documents, photographs of European corpses, morpho-anthropometric records and measurement data, laboratory vials, X-rays and much more. In the course of their investigations, the police discovered a secret laboratory at 22 Rue des Goujons in Anderlecht, a municipality in the south of Brussels. Residents reported the comings and goings of several young people of African origin and their Belgian friends. According to neighbours, ‘suspicious rituals’ were being practised in an apparently abandoned old warehouse. Residents had already filed several complaints about harassment from ‘black music’ and suspicious nocturnal activities. On the evening of 20 February, a police operation in the warehouse led to the arrest of four people. A small group of African scholarship holders had set up what appeared to be a secret ‘scientific laboratory’. There they measured and photographed the ‘white bodies’ – as they put it – of their friends. Several hundred images were confiscated.

With this exhibition, Teddy Mazina provides insight into his discoveries and research on the material of the reported ‘case.’ The exhibition displays some of the confiscated images and additional archival material. In a lecture performance that is part of the exhibition opening, Teddy Mazina will present his work on this topic from recent years.

Following the opening, the exhibition will run from 25 September to 8 December. The exhibition can be viewed by appointment.
Registration at: birgit.goetz@theaterimdepot.de