The Memory Guardians

2024

12min

In the court of the Memory Guardians, a trial ensues about what to do with the statue of the Kneeling Woman, following her defacement in Zehlendorf and relocation to the Zitadelle Museum in Spandau. While one counsel advocates that the statue be publicly displayed in the Zitadelle Spandau Museum to caution against “left-wing extremism”, another argues that she should be kept in the more private Schaudepot indefinitely to educate about difficult history. Yet another argues for her to be destroyed, given the racist beliefs of her creator, the violence against her and the messiness of contextualising all this Black pain for a public.