In 2020, Mahret Ifeoma Kupka curated the exhibition 'Life doesn't frighten me - Michelle Elie wears Comme des Garçons' at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany. Against the backdrop of the worldwide Black Lives Matter protests the exhibition focussing on a Black fashion collector, style icon and Japanese label Comme des Garçons enthusiast turned out to be a political show on questions of representation and diversity not only in museum spaces. In her lecture Mahret Ifeoma Kupka will talk about the exhibitions background and theoretical context, gaps in knowledge about racism and colonialism in Germany, but also about caring and self-love as activism and why institutions in Germany in particular have a lot of work to catch up on.
Dr. Mahret Ifeoma Kupka is an art scholar, freelance writer and, since 2013, curator of fashion, body and the performative at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. In her exhibitions, lectures, publications, and interdisciplinary projects, she addresses the issues of racism, memory culture, representation, and the decolonization of art and cultural practices in Europe and on the African continent. She is a member of the advisory board of the Initiative of Black people in Germany (ISD) and spokesperson of the Neue Deutsche Museumsmacher*innen (a network of BIPoC museum practitioners in Germany). She studied Economics in Heidelberg as well as Aesthetics/Media Theory, Philosophy, Curatorial Practice and Exhibition Design at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design, where in 2015 she received her doctorate with a dissertation on “Modeblogs und der Mythos der Revolutionierung der Mode”.
This event is kindly supported by the DAAD and will be chaired by Barry Murnane and Veronika Schuchter.
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Image: Igbo Mask with assortment of books in Mahret Ifeoma Kupka’s Frankfurt apartment
