Ken Aïcha Sy. Survival Kit – Between Us and History: The Hidden Archive

In the organizer's words:

Between a family archive and the collective dimension of a shared heritage: the history of contemporary Senegalese painting from 1960-1990.

From June 20, the new exhibition at the ifa Gallery Berlin will present for the first time in Germany the central results of the five-year research project Survival Kit by curator and cultural activist Ken Aïcha Sy on the key moments in contemporary Senegalese painting between 1960 and 1990. The second part of the exhibition project will be shown at the ifa Gallery Stuttgart from October.

Ken Aïcha Sy, researcher and curator, born and raised in Senegal as the daughter of the journalist and cultural activist Anne Jean Bart and the artist El Hadji Sy, uses a personal family archive to shed light on important artistic and cultural initiatives, movements and collectives that have significantly shaped contemporary Senegalese art.

Today, this cultural heritage is scattered outside the African continent and largely unknown in Senegal. Ken Aïcha Sy's research has taken her to museum archives in Italy, Great Britain and Germany, including the Iwalewahaus at the University of Bayreuth and the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt am Main, which was one of the first ethnological museums in Germany to collect contemporary art, particularly from Africa

The exhibition Survival Kit - Between Us and History: The Hidden Archive will be shown in both ifa galleries - first in Berlin, then in Stuttgart. In two locations and with different scenographies, it explores a common focus: the intimate connection between a family archive and the collective dimension of a shared heritage - the history of contemporary Senegalese painting from 1960 to 1990. With a selection of works from German museum collections, the exhibition aims to bring these artists out of the depots and make them accessible to the public in order to shed new light on their artistic heritage.

"Survival Kit is not just a collection of objects or documents: It is a fragment of living memory, a legacy in motion. With this exhibition, I want to open up a new international perspective on the works and narratives that have shaped - and continue to shape - the Senegalese art scene. This dialog between the intimate and the global invites us to reflect on how a cultural heritage, when it circulates beyond its origins, becomes a common language that fosters resilience, creativity and identity." - Ken Aïcha Sy

The project also involves German cultural institutions and aims to initiate a dialog about African archives and heritage. Survival Kit activates these spaces to explore tensions, bridges and the possibilities of restitution - setting narratives and perspectives in motion.