Opening FASIA, Saturday, 25.10.2025, 2-5 pm
26.10.– 6.12.2025
Location:
Fasiathek, fux eG
Bodenstedtstr. 16, back yard entrance B, 3rd floor, 22765 Hamburg
Elevator available – if needed, please call 0176 62041795.
Regular exhibition opening hours:
Tuesday 12–5 pm, Wednesday 10:30–4 pm, Thursday 2–7 pm, Friday 3–8 pm, Saturday 12–4pm
Curated by Millicent Adjei (ARCA e.V.) and Joanna Warsza.
Part of the series Counter-Monuments City Curator Hamburg and within the frame of fluctoplasma Festival 2025.
Admission free.
A barrier free e-publication accompanying the exhibition is released by Berlin-based publisher ECCLECTIC, featuring the original audio files from the installation, numerous illustrations, and texts by Ina Wudtke, Anujah Fernando, Jasmin Eding, Robbie Aitken, and others in German and English.
In her work, artist Ina Wudtke uncovers traces of Black history in Germany and commemorates past and present anti-racist struggles in a multidirectional way. For her site-specific work FASIA, she activates archival material such as songs, texts, and photos by Fasia Jansen (1929–1997), Hilarius Gilges (1909-1933), and Joseph Ekwe Bilé (1892-1959), who were active in the context of the workers movement against racism and colonialism in Germany. The exhibition project FASIA comprises a banner on the facade of the fux eG building and an installation titled Black Lives Audio Triptych in the Fasiathek.
The Black Lives Audio Triptych consists of three staged audio self-portraits by Fasia Jansen, Hilarius Gilges, and Joseph Ekwe Bilé and will be available for listening throughout the duration of the exhibition in the space of the Fasiathek. When selecting the speakers — Jasmin Eding, Jeanne-Ange Wagne, and Kofie Bouchie aka Kofie da Vibe — Ina Wudtke focused on their current social engagement, which is understood as a continuation of the political work of the respective protagonists.
The Fasiathek was named after Fasia Jansen. Fasia was the daughter of Elli Jansen and Momulu Massaquoi, the then Liberian Consul General in Hamburg. Fasia grew up with her mother and her husband Albert in a communist household in the working-class district of Rothenburgsort. As a Black German, she was forced to work in a satellite camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp at the age of 15. After World War II, she became a voice against racism and war in the Easter March movement, the labor struggles in the Ruhr region, and the women's movement.
The Fasiathek, a library run by ARCA e.V. with works by Black authors, is located in the fux eG building in Altona, in the former Viktoria Kaserne. This was built during the Wilhelmine imperial and colonial era. During the Nazi regime, police units were stationed here, which carried out the Altona Bloody Sunday. In addition, communists were executed in the barracks' courtyard which crushed Hamburg's workers' movement. Both the history of the Viktoria Kaserne and the Fasiathek concealed in the backyard are still little known to many Hamburg residents. The banners with Fasia's portrait on the fux eG building refer to the hidden Fasiathek in the backyard which offers an opportunity to learn more about the history of this place.
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