Dani Gal

Film screening and artist talk

18.11.24, 17:00–19:00

Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin

Dani Gal’s latest film Dark Continent (2023), currently on view in the exhibition Forgive Us Our Trespasses / Vergib uns unsere Schuld, deals with the ‘racial phobias’ resulting from the colonial imaginary and their transmission through music. The film draws on the case study published by psychiatrist, political theorist, and anti-colonial author Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks (1952): a young French female patient suffers from a nervous disorder triggered by the sound of African drums—prohibited by colonial regimes because they were suspected of carrying signals of rebellion.

The screening at the HKW is open to the public and will be followed by a lecture from Gal and an open discussion with the audience. Gal will talk about the structure of the film in relation to its historical and literary sources, discussing the dynamics of cultural intolerance within oppressive systems and how these structures infiltrate psychological spaces and manifest in fear and alienation, particularly through sound and music. The screening and discussion, part of a series of artistic research events at inherit, is jointly conceived by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and inherit.