Visitor from Berlin

Just in time to escape the last breath of German winter, Regina Sarreiter arrived in Cape Town to explore the city and discuss a possible collaboration with the Archive & Public Culture research initiative. Her PhD project involves archival material (ethnographic objects, sound recordings, photographs) collected by the German Benedictine missionary and anthropologist Pater Meinulf Kuesters, who was active in the Inkamana Abbey in KwaZulu-Natal in the 1920s.

After working with APC senior researcher Anette Hoffmann on Hoffmann's exhibition, What We See, in Berlin (See Gazette, May 2012) and on the collaborative voice/text installation, Unerhörter Bericht über die deutschen Verbrechen in den kolonisierten Gebieten und über das fortwährende Wirken der Gewalt bis in die Gegenwart (Unheard/outrageous report on the crimes of the Germans in the colonized regions and the ongoing effect of violence to the present day) (See Gazette, October 2012), Sarreiter's research into the practice of ethnographic collecting was increasingly alerted to the question of the role of sound recordings in collections. Especially in Germany, the recordings were often separated from the artefacts and other objects early on in the biography of the ethnographic collection, resulting in them being ignored by researchers.

During her stay in Cape Town, Sarreiter met with Hoffmann and Carolyn Hamilton, who are both enthusiastic about a collaboration with her, especially regarding Kuester's isiZulu recordings that are held at the Phonogrammarchiv in Berlin, Germany.

Sarreiter also participated in the workshop on Listening/Radio/Ear-Witnessing, which was an excellent opportunity to get to know other APC fellows and researchers at UCT, as well as to get an impression of the engaging discussions about sound and listening that are taking off in the APC group.

As the collaborative installation of Hoffmann/Bellu/Bellu/Sarreiter was invited to the group exhibition, His Master's Voice, at the HardWareKunstVerein in Dortmund, Germany, Hoffmann and Sarreiter benefited from her visit, which allowed for  further development of the installation and a contribution for the exhibition's catalogue together with Matei Bellu (Berlin) and Andrea Bellu (New York).

Further information about the exhibition can be accessed here: http://www.hmkv.de/_en/programm/programmpunkte/2013/Ausstellungen/2013_His_Masters_Voice.php