Liz Rech
(NOT A) COMMON GROUND

  • Baakenhafen (View of Baakenpark) © Liz Rech
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The site-specific project (NOT A) COMMON GROUND deals with Hamburg's Baakenhafen as an important postcolonial memorial site. It is a performative contribution to a highly conflictual discourse that currently shapes the cultural and memory politics debate in Hamburg. Public spaces can be read as living archives that reveal the city's multi-layered history.

(NOT A) COMMON GROUND places a particular emphasis on the political staging that accompanied the commissioning of the so-called "Protection Troops" at Baakenhafen in Hamburg, who, under the command of Lothar von Trotha, committed a genocide against the Herero and Nama peoples in present-day Namibia (then "German South West Africa"). Engaging with the performative dimension of this colonial "event culture" and conducting performative research into the corresponding political, national-colonial staging is part of the artistic strategy. Together with a diverse team of artists, the project aims to activate the city's historical memory and question the current discourse production surrounding this site. It seeks to make colonial history visible through the activation of the specific location as part of a performative monument.

(NOT A) COMMON GROUND will include various locations at Baakenhafen and, as part of a search for traces, transfer disturbing legacies and intimate pasts into the city's public memory. Complementing the project is the film series From Baakenhafen to the World, which initiates a dialogue on Hamburg’s colonial history. The series takes place at different locations around Baakenhafen and involves changing sites and cooperation partners.

(NOT A) COMMON GROUND will take place in summer 2026 as part of the City Curator Hamburg Counter-Monuments series in cooperation with the Hamburg Architecture Summer.

The project is founded by the Hamburger Elbkulturfonds.

Biography

Liz Rech studied theater dramaturgy in Munich, Berlin and Avignon and directing at the Hamburg University of Music and Theater (HfMT). She moved to Hamburg in 2002 and has lived there ever since. Since 2007, she has realized numerous projects at the intersection of theater, installation, activism, and performance. Since 2009, she has been part of the artist initiative Komm in die Gänge in Hamburg's Gängeviertel district; she also works continuously with artist collectives (Schwabinggrad Ballett; Megaphonchor).

Since 2015, she has been conducting research at the artistic-scientific graduate college PERFORMING CITIZENSHIP (HCU; k3 - Center for Choreography / Hamburg). Her artistic research focuses on choreographic movement practices within social movements. In addition to her artistic work, Liz Rech teaches at various universities, including the HfMT and HafenCity University /HCU in Hamburg. In one of her performative research projects, BEYOND RE:PRODUCTION, she explored the tension between motherhood and artistic production and, as part of a nationwide Artist Lab funded by the Performing Arts Fund, developed the WITH CARE, toolkit to improve the working situation for artists with care responsibilities. Most recently, she collaborated with Bubu Mosiashvili on the walking performances Rehearsing Collectivity I + II as part of the Recurrencies series at the Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst/GAK in Bremen in 2024–2025.