Project of the Group Donjons 6
(by Aïssatou Ciss, Angelika Levi and Lisa Riedner)

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The Shadow Box explores the post/colonial entanglements between Senegal and Germany. The starting point is a box with photos and objects that belonged to Lisa’s family, who lived in Gorée at the end of the 19th century. The photos show German consul and colonial trader Heinrich Linxweiler with his white-German wife Marguerite and their children, Black household workers, whose names we don’t know, a nun, a grave, a village and a manufactory. The objects are bags and amulets made of horn and leather.

We invite people to engage with the collection from different perspectives, understanding knowledge production as a network formation and a multidirectional relationship to the world.

“In February 2024, I traveled from Germany to Dakar with a box I called “La boîte de l’ombre”. A form of stress invaded my heart to return with these objects to Dakar after over 100 years. I must find the answer to why I have this box. The journey begins here.

The question of the restitution of cultural property involves a multitude of issues. According to Pierre-Laurent Frier, “cultural heritage” covers all the traces of human activity that a society considers essential to its identity and collective memory, and which it wishes to preserve to pass them on to future generations”. (Aissatou Ciss)

A series of photographic portraits in the mountains and waterfalls in Kedougou in Senegal will attempt to depict souls in dialogue with objects through the bodies of male, female and child models interacting with the objects. A film documents the return of “la boîte de l’ombre”.
The filmic essay is situated between documentary and fiction, art and politics that does not follow a linear narrative but multiple traces that crisscross contested times, spaces and materialities.

Photo: Aissatou Ciss in Miomp/Oussouye