September 25th until December 8th

Exhibition: Muzungu Tribes by Teddy Mazina

Opening September 24th, 6:30 pm with a lecture performance by Teddy Mazina and subsequent discussion

On 04/02/1972, customs officials in Brussels seized several crates headed for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the Zaventem airport. Police were alerted. The crates contained hundreds of documents, photo-graphs of the bodies of European individuals, morpho-anthropometric records and measurement data, laboratory vials, x-rays, and more. An investigation was opened and the police discovered a secret laboratory at 22, rue des Goujons in Anderlecht, a municipality in the south of Brussels. Residents signalled the comings and goings of several young individuals of African origin and their Belgian friends. According to the neighbours, »suspicious rites« were being practiced in what appeared to be an old abandoned warehouse. Residents had already filed several complaints over the nuisance caused by »Blackmusic« and suspicious night-time activity. On the evening of 20 February, a police action in the warehouse led to the arrest of four individuals. A small group of African students on scholarship had installed what appeared to be a clandestine »scientific laboratory«. There they measured and photographed the »white bodies« – in their words – of their friends. Several hundred images were confiscated.

With this exhibition Teddy Mazina gives an insight of his discovery and investigation on the material of the reported »case«. The exhibition presents some of the confiscated pictures and some aditional archive material. In a lecture performance which is part of the exhibition’s opening Teddy will introduce his work on the subject of the last years.

It can be visited by appointment.
Registrations under: birgit.goetz@theaterimdepot.de