Schädel X / Skull X

Thousands of human skulls from all over the world are lying in the basements of German universities and museums. Many of them stem from the former colonies. Most of these skulls were unjustly taken from already buried bodies or from the corpses of killed “insurgents”. These skulls were brought to Germany as trophies. In institutes of anthropology, scientists researched and examined the skulls in order to substantiate theories of race. With Rudolf Virchow and Felix von Luschan, Berlin became the center of the skull collectors.

100 years later, more and more demands are being made for the respectful handling of these skulls and their restitution to their descendants. Universities and museums are slowly starting to look into their basements and at this dark chapter in their history. The first restitution of skulls to the Herero and Nama people in Namibia in 2011 turned into a diplomatic disaster. Research into the origins of the skulls is costly and complicated. Rarely can a skull be linked to a specific individual and questions remain as to whether research on the skulls is indeed a second debasement of these human remains.

A skull forms the center of this lecture-performance. Two biographical stories revolve around it. They lead from Germany to Tanzania, across archives, consulates and battlefields, from colonial history to the present and into the skull of each audience member. With historical documents and sound files, they connect to a bizarre odyssey between science, politics and theatre.

A Flinn Works Production

Created by Konradin Kunze (concept, research and performance), Sophia Stepf (direction), Andi Otto (sound design), Jürgen Salzmann (video design), Marcello Lussana (technician), ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro & Helena Tsiflidis (production management), Mnyaka Sururu Mboro, Isaria Anael Meli, Upendo Moshi & Gerhard Ziegenfuss (experts)

Supported by Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V., Hessian Ministry for Science and Art and Cultural Office of the City of Kassel

In co-production with Sophiensæle Berlin

Events

Sophiensæle Berlin: May 4 (Opening) - 7, 2016 / Museum für Sepulkralkultur Kassel: May 27 & 28, 2016 / Landesmuseum Hannover: November 5 & 6, 2016 / Goethe-Institute Tanzania, Dar es Salaam: January 2017 / Performing Arts Festival Berlin @ Tieranatomisches Theater: June 15 - 17, 2017 / MADE Festival Hessen, Museum für Sepulkralkultur Kassel: September 27, 2017 / Theater im G-Werk Marburg: November 3, 2017 / Kulturwerkwochen Schlüchtern: November 15, 2017 / Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg: January 16 & 18, 2018 (supported by Rusch Foundation) / Theater Bremen: January 19 & 21, 2018 (supported by Böll Foundation Bremen) / Freiburg Festival at E-Werk Freiburg: June 12 & 13, 2018 / Conference „Dead Images“, University of Edinburgh: June 30, 2018 / Zeichensaal Uni Witzenhausen: September 8, 2018 / Tieranatomisches Theater der HU Berlin: October 26, November 3 & 9, 2018 (supported by Rusch Foundation) / Staatstheater Nürnberg: November 16 & 17, 2018 / Württembergischer Kunstverein: November 29, 2019

Press

Kunze's performance ties in with a current debate. Artistic interventions such as Skull X show that collecting, researching and exhibiting bodies was not only formative for the understanding of the ‘inferior races’, it also made science and exhibiting a dominant cultural technique in the encounter with the other.

Süddeutsche Zeitung

The soothing melodies of Skull X are inseparable from the tumult around it, embodied by both the intricate, irretrievable context of its acquisition and the resounding significance of its repatriation. Despite its leading white-male narrator, Schädel X passes on postcolonial pleas for indemnity and atonement that should be heard at last. After an hour and a half of thrilling investigation, we still don't know where the skull comes from. At least, its deathlike aesthetic has now become familiar, human.

Potsdam Postkolonial

The actor delivers a performance that is as haunting as it is disturbing. (...) ‘Skull X’, however, makes it clear: the attempt to sit out the monstrous will fail. Thanks to the work of Flinn Works, descendants and politically engaged people will no longer be able to ignore it NDR Kunze goes further with the means of art and theatre than many a provenance researcher. He initiates a long overdue discourse.

NDR

Audio