Speech by Ade Darmawan (Ruangrupa)

9.7.2022 – SPEECH BY ADE DARMAWAN (RUANGRUPA) IN THE COMMITTEE ON CULTURE AND MEDIA GERMAN BUNDESTAG, JULY 6, 2022
Dear members of the Bundestag, my name is Ade Darmawan, and today I’m addressing you as part of ruangrupa. Let me start with a brief comment about history. In 1955, Arnold Bode established documenta in Kassel, Germany, to heal the wounds of the Second World War. A few months before, in that same year, a group of leaders collectively laid the ground for what would be known as the Non Aligned Movement, in Bandung, Indonesia, discussing a way forward independent from and built on the wounds of the colonial powers. I feel the need to retell these historical facts because histories can show us how the world imagined how to deal with atrocities and deep wounds at the same time but differently.