The right to listen to the voices of the ancestors: a plea
A plea for making phonographic recordings from Togo accessible to the people of Togo. Submitted to the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv on March 21, 2023.
Literature as colonial loot: histories of provenance
Ausstellung vom 26.04 bis zum 30.06. 26. April, 18 - 20 Uhr: Eröffnung und Gastvortrag von Mèhèza Kalibani: Stimmen als Beute: Wie Gesänge und Sprichwörter von Kolonisierten nach Berlin gelangten.
Photo: © Akono Verlag (https://akono.de/product/from-windhoek-to-kamina-to-nauen-a-workbook-diverse-autorinnen-dt-eng-fr/)
From Windhoek to Kamina to Nauen - A Workbook
From Windhoek to Kamina to Nauen listens to the present-day echoes of telegraphy between Nauen (Germany), Kamina (Togo), and Windhoek (Namibia).
The colonial ear
With the invention of the phonograph in 1877, the sound not only became a museum artifact in the European ethnological context but this invention also offered new opportunities for scholars in their attempt to study the so-called ?primitives?
Phonographed under constraint
An article by journalist Pat Christ on Mèhèza Kalibani's research into the acoustic legacy of German colonisation, published in October 2022 in the Neue Musikzeitschrift.
The Voices of our ancestors: a collective listening workshop
Organised by Mèhèza Kalibani in cooperation with the German-African Literature and Identities (LIGA) research team, the listening and discussion workshop "Les voix de nos aieux" (The voices of our ancestors) was held on 13 January 2022 in the large reading room of the Lomé University Library.
Visiting the Palais de Lomé, a site of memory of German colonialism
Built between 1898 and 1905, the Palais de Lomé, formerly Palais des Gouverneurs, has undergone quite an odyssey over the last 100 years. It has served as an administrative building under all regimes of governance of Togo: the German and French colonial powers and the independent Togo since 1960.
There and back again: From West Africa to Westphalia and back again
Felix Gräfenberg (History Commission for Westphalia) interviews Mèhèza Kalibani on how to deal with colonial sound records on Togo. Kalibani explains the significance of acoustic sources in colonial history research, tells about her research trip to West Africa and clarifies what all this has to do with Westphalia.
