In summer 2022, the Southeast Asia-excursion of the Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies will lead us to Kassel. We will encounter the region during the worldwide known art exhibition documenta. The Indonesian art collective ruangrupa curates the exhibition and hence will bring Indonesia to Germany. The ten-day excursion will take place from 21 to 30 August 2022. Thematically, we will focus on the European colonial legacy which until today shapes relations between Indonesian and Germany. For our critical inquiry into this legacy, we will not only visit Kassel, but also nearby Witzenhausen.

We will visit documenta for several days and learn about collective and socially engaged art practices. documenta fifteen of the year 2022 is the first of the exhibition’s almost seventy-year existence that is curated by artists from Asia and by a whole group – and not only by an individual artist. For the documenta, ruangrupa gathers several art collectives which have in common that they not only address the usual art audiences but that they cultivate mutual exchanges with their local environments. Many of these collectives are situated in the Global South. ruangrupa’s curational approach builds on collaborative partnerships, for instance between artists and the sponsors of the exhibition. Marginalized perspectives are put at the center of the exhibition. Thereby, the collective considers its approach as part of endeavors to deal with wounds “rooted in colonialism, capitalism, or patriarchal structures.”

During the second part of the excursion, we will visit Witzenhausen. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, the first “Colonial School for Agriculture, Trade and Industry” was established there. The school educated young men who were going to work as agricultural professionals in the former German colonies. During that time, the colonial students sent the seeds of tropical and subtropical plants to Witzenhausen and created the basic stock for the contemporary tropical greenhouse of the Kassel University. We will visit the colonial archive that belongs to the successor of the colonial school, the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture, and Transdisciplinary and Social-ecological Landuse Research (DITSL), and learn how today the institution addresses its colonial past. At the tropical greenhouse, we will explore the multiple entanglements of plants with colonial histories.

The seminar ”Südostasien-Exkursion: Indonesien in Deutschland – Kunst und koloniale Verflechtungen“ (44240, summer term 2022) during the summer term 2022 will prepare the excursion.  It will be offered collaboratively by art historian Claudia König and excursion leaders Charlotte Chin and Kartika Wulang. Also, the performance artist Arahmaiani from Indonesia will collaborate with students and develop an arts performance during the block seminar “Join us to documenta fifteen! Developing an Indonesian Art Performance” (44250, summer term 2022). Students will contribute to a ceremony held at the occasion of the renaming of the chair into “Critical Development Studies – Southeast Asia” on 08 July 2022. The renaming is not least a result of the chair’s critical engagement in colonial legacies that also stand in the focus of the excursion.

Students of International Cultural and Business Studies, students with a focus on Art history and Visual Culture Studies, students of Geography, and students of the Master Program “Development Studies” can participate in the excursion. For students of the Master Program "Development Studies," participation in the excursion can be accredited as completion of the module "Applied Development Studies" in the study field D "transfer."

The costs for the excursion per person amount to 400-450 Euros (travel costs, accommodation, and tickets included) We applied for a  subsidy. Participants will probably have to pay 250-300 as their own share.

The number of participants in the excursion is limited to 25 persons. Registration starts in January 2022 and will end on  April 1, 2022. Students can register via Stud.IP and enroll in the course 44240a Exkursion, summer term 2022.

In case of more registrations than available places, students for whom participation in an excursion is mandatory by their respective study regulations will be prioritized.