This is not only about his(s)tory - THIS IS OUR STORY
“OUR STORY” IS A CONTEMPORARY INTERVENTION AT THE EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF ELECTOR FRIEDRICH WILHELM IN FRONT OF CHARLOTTENBURG PALACE.
The intervention “Our Story” is a multimedia artwork dedicated to empowerment, the processing of grief, and decolonization. The four wooden steles encircle the equestrian monument, standing in front of the four chained enslaved people, and intervene in the existing narrative of the monument. Their scaffolding-like appearance embodies the complexity of society, while the height of the sculptures creates a dialogue on equal footing. The color scheme (red–black) reflects traditional mourning colors used in Akan funeral rituals, offering a semantic space for processing the suffering caused by the slave trade.
The four steles also serve as access points to new virtual sculptures, each referring to an element of empowerment:
“Unity, Truth, Freedom, and Courage.”
The Adinkra symbols on the base of the steles represent these concepts. Through QR codes, visitors can place new monuments in the courtyard via augmented reality and set them in dialogue with the equestrian monument. The sculptures are accompanied by audio recordings of the sea along the coast of Ghana and four spoken text contributions.
The authors from Germany and Ghana explore their personal interpretations of these concepts in short reflections, contextualized through the intervention.
This creates a dialogue between the artwork and its visitors, aiming to collectively illuminate and negotiate historical events while simultaneously offering impulses for self-empowerment in everyday life.
The visual language of the four virtual sculptures draws from the tradition of Mrammou (Akan Gold Weights), which embody wisdom, social status, and experiential worlds. Their texture consists of contemporary newspaper articles, referencing the connection between historical events and current political discourse — past, present, and future are inextricably intertwined.
Through augmented reality, visitors are empowered to construct new compositions and juxtapositions, offering fresh readings of existing monuments within a participatory space. Parallel interactions and simultaneous exhibitions invite people worldwide to contribute and re-document history — history is not something that happens without us; we are all part of it.
Authors and narrators of the spoken manifestos:
Wanlov the Kubolor
Angel Maxine
Nando Nkrumah
Mirjam Nünning
The bridge between the special exhibition and the intervention is an animation created with artificial intelligence (AI). In a time-lapse sequence, it shows an abstract connection between the equestrian monument at Charlottenburg Palace (here) and the ruins of Fort Großfriedrichsburg in present-day Ghana (there). Past, present, and future circle and appear to merge. As shapes and surroundings shift, resistance to the rigid structures of a long-unaddressed colonial past becomes visible.
Concept Creation of “OUR STORY”
The concept for “OUR STORY” emerged during a three-phase art competition:
Initial concept (Aug – Oct 2022)
Concept elaboration (Oct – Dec 2022)
Implementation phase (Jan – Jul 2023)
At the beginning stood the question of how an artistic intervention might reframe and overwrite a monument that symbolizes historical violence. It was also meant to enable access to new perspectives and positions.
By intervening in the existing visual narrative of the equestrian monument, the work highlights the urgent need for structures that support sustainable empowerment and the processing of grief.
Through the monument’s new configuration, a powerful image of self-liberation emerges: the chained people depicted in the original monument mentally free themselves from their bonds and step onto their pedestals, which are still under construction. This elevation, visibility, and empowerment of all members of society is a prerequisite for dialogue on equal footing. The color choice of the pedestals simultaneously points to the need for spaces of grief work within the context of the Maafa.
The digital layer of augmented reality emerged from the desire to give visitors the ability to create their own perspectives and positions, thus understanding themselves as part of historical narration.
PULL and PUSH — The Intervention as a Field of Force
In the initial design phase, the focus was on basic principles of accessibility and multimedia discourse.
The intervention’s long-range visibility invites visitors in the courtyard to explore and reflect on the monument, its references, and the intervention.
The steles, conceived as permeable structures, offer visual access to the figures at the monument’s base and highlight the “unfinished” state of structural change within and beyond institutions.
Through the augmented-reality sculptures, reflection on historical events and empowerment is carried into the wider environment, urban space, and personal everyday spaces.
This allows for negotiation of social responsibility and historical connections anywhere in the world.
Through simultaneous engagement with the intervention, we are connected and can reflect on history together.
To illuminate these historical connections, prior research included a visit to Fort Groß Friedrichsburg and conversations with local residents. The Brandenburgers had negotiated treaties with the local king, Nana Konneh (also known as John Canoe or January Conny), to secure their activities on site. Slave hunters abducted people from inland regions, often destroying entire villages. In exchange, they received weapons and ammunition from the fort.
The sound of the sea at Cape Three Points is another element of the intervention, underscoring the spoken texts and creating a direct connection to the coastal region.
HISTORY
Fort Groß Friedrichsburg
In 1682, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm (1620–1688) founded the colony of Groß Friedrichsburg in what is now southwestern Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) to enter the gold and slave trade. The Brandenburg-African Company (BAC) was established to expand the naval fleet and consolidate international power using colonial possessions and profits from the trade in human beings and valuable resources.
Alongside Dorotheenschanze and Sophie-Louise-Schanze, Fort Groß Friedrichsburg was built near Cape Three Points — a location that would become a central hub of the European slave trade.
Many people died from inhumane conditions even before the transatlantic crossing, were killed during capture, or succumbed to the grueling forced marches.
Most were deported to the Caribbean and forced into hard labor on plantations.
On St. Thomas, the Brandenburgers leased part of the island from the Danes to participate in the profitable slave trade along the Gold Coast and the more westerly Slave Coast.
In 1717, the Brandenburg possessions at Cape Three Points were sold to the Dutch (Dutch West India Company). After several conflicts with King Nana Konneh, they seized the fort and renamed it “Fort Hollandia.”
The Equestrian Statue of Friedrich Wilhelm
The “Equestrian Statue of the Great Elector” was created between 1696–1700 and erected in 1703 on the Long Bridge at Berlin Palace. During World War II, it was moved to Ketzin/Havel for protection from air raids and sank into the Tegeler See during its transport back after the war.
After the division of Berlin, the West Berlin Senate decided not to return the monument to its original location but to erect it “temporarily” in the courtyard of Charlottenburg Palace — where it remains to this day.
Given its historical context within the transatlantic slave trade, the four chained figures at the base of the Baroque monument evoke discomfort or pain for many viewers, especially when reflecting on historical events.
The social value of monuments telling such narratives is currently being intensely discussed and questioned in Germany by activists, institutions, and organizations.
The Artistic Intervention
The Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg (SPSG), under Director General Prof. Dr. Christoph Martin Vogtherr, has intensified efforts in recent years to examine the colonial legacies within its cultural heritage.
As part of the SPSG thematic year “Elector – Emperor – Colonies,” the special exhibition “Palaces. Prussia. Colonial. Biographies and Collections in Focus” (4 July–31 October 2023) examines colonial connections in the foundation’s palaces, gardens, and collections.
For the duration of the exhibition, the equestrian statue of the “Great Elector” in the courtyard of Charlottenburg Palace is accompanied by a contemporary artistic intervention.
An international art competition was announced in August 2022, won by Nando Nkrumah through the vote of a five-member jury.
With both physical and digital objects, the artist creates new structures for sustainable empowerment and dialogue on equal footing within public discourse.
The fort is located along the coast of the Ahanta West District in western Ghana, west of Sekondi-Takoradi and near Cape Three Points.
Due to conflicts between Nana Konneh and the Dutch and centuries of decay, only about half of the structure remains.
Up to 200 people were imprisoned in cramped spaces without sanitation for up to three months.
In a mass grave outside the fort’s walls and behind the “door of no return,” countless people were buried who did not survive the conditions of captivity.
In the bay, the captured people waited under strict guard to be transported on small boats to large frigates. Most were taken to St. Thomas or to the Brandenburg colony of Arguin (island off Mauritania).
The two-story church held Sunday services while people next door fought for survival in the dungeon. Local allied intermediaries were permitted to sit in a separate chamber beside the church hall.
From the church, there is a direct view of the dungeon entrance.
Three small ceiling openings served as air and food supply, through which food was lowered twice daily.
Adinkra Symbols
Adinkra symbols originate from present-day Ghana and Ivory Coast and are central to Akan culture. They represent aphorisms, wisdom, and spiritual power. They appear in textile printing, wall reliefs, pottery, and traditional Mrammou (gold weights).
For “Our Story,” Nkrumah selected four elements essential for sustainable empowerment: Unity, Truth, Freedom, and Courage.
Unity — NKONSONKONSON
Symbol of unity and human relations. A reminder to contribute to the community, for in unity lies strength.
Truth — NOKORE
The symbol shows a knot, representing the complexity and intricacy of truth — difficult to unravel.
Freedom — FAWOHODIE
Symbol of independence, freedom, and emancipation. Independence brings responsibility.
Courage — KWATAKYE ATIKO
Symbol of bravery and fearlessness, said to depict the unique hairstyle of Kwatakye, a war captain of the Asante.
Biographical Notes
Wanlov the Kubolor
A visionary musician, producer, and filmmaker of Ghanaian-Romanian heritage.
He is an activist for environmental protection and LGBT+ rights in Ghana.
He collaborated with Angel Maxine to use music as activism against homophobia in Ghana.
Angel Maxine
A Ghanaian musician and the country’s first openly transgender musical artist.
She advocates for LGBT+ rights in Ghana.
Her 2020 debut “Sweetness (D3d33d3)” was followed by “Wo Fie” with Wanlov and the 2021 campaign song “Kill The Bill,” opposing anti-LGBT legislation.
Nando Nkrumah
A visual artist of Ghanaian-German heritage.
His futuristic imagery draws from Ghanaian mythology and history as well as explorations of new spaces in Germany.
He works with both classical media and digital technologies such as AR.
His recent works include the AR installation “JAMESTOWN ARbotage” (Accra, 2019), the intervention “Conversations” (Cologne, 2020), and “Our Story” (Berlin, 2023).
Mirjam Nünning
A freelance translator of English-language Afro-diasporic literature and founder of the Afro-diasporic kindergarten “Sankofa” in Berlin.
Her translations include Sharon Dodua Otoo’s the things i am thinking while smiling politely and Synchronicity, as well as Octavia Butler’s Kindred (Verbunden).
Contributors
Artist: Nando Nkrumah
Authors: Wanlov the Kubolor, Angel Maxine, Nando Nkrumah, Mirjam Nünning
XR Developer: Jennifer Gabel
Sound FX & Mixing: Nikolai von Sallwitz
Environmental Sound Recording: Senthuran Nageswaran
Wood Construction: Nando Nkrumah (design), Tischlerei Lohre (execution)
Editing: Aminata Estelle Diouf
Jury: Dr. Ibou C. Diop, Julia Hagenberg, Dr. Natasha A. Kelly, Lerato Shadi, Prof. Dr. Christoph Martin Vogtherr
Curators of the Special Exhibition: Carolin Alff, Susanne Evers
Commissioned by: Charlottenburg Palace (Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation, represented by Director General Prof. Dr. Christoph Martin Vogtherr)
Funded by: The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
All intellectual property remains with the respective authors of writing, visual arts, and sound design.
