CPPD Festival “Voices Rising: Memory Unsilenced”
11 March 2026 | Altonaer Museum, Hamburg
On 11 March 2026, CPPD hosted its first festival of the year at the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg. Under the title “Voices Rising: Memory Unsilenced,” the day combined three different formats: a civil society networking meeting, a memorial ceremony for two Vietnamese victims of early right-wing terrorism in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the opening of the Dynamic Memory Lab “Nước Đức. Vietnamese-German Migration History(ies).”
Networking Meeting: Whose Memory Counts?
The event opened with the networking meeting “(In)visibilities in Memory Culture,” moderated by Avra Emin and attended by over 50 representatives from the arts, education, and civil society. At its core was the question of the selectivity of memory-political discourse: Which stories are institutionally supported, which remain marginal—and what does this mean for the practices of civil society actors? CPPD curator Max Czollek formulated a diagnosis that set the tone for the day: the discourse on memory culture, long functioning as a progressive counterpoint to state narratives, is increasingly itself becoming state-driven—and in the process shifting to the right. For the initiatives present, this was less an abstract observation than a concrete challenge: how can alternative formats of remembrance be sustained against this trend? The discussions made clear that the sharing of resources and cooperation between communities play a central role—not as an ideal, but as an operational necessity.
Commemoration of Châu and Lân
In the afternoon, a Buddhist-inspired memorial ceremony took place for Nguyễn Ngoc Châu and Đỗ Anh Lân, who were murdered in 1980 in a racially motivated arson attack on what was then Halskestraße in Hamburg-Billbrook—one of the early right-wing terrorist murders in the Federal Republic. The survivors Thi Kim Thoa Ngũ and Thời Trong Ngũ set up a traditional memorial altar with flowers and fruit. The moment brought together personal mourning and collective remembrance. The Ngũ couple have been committed for decades to ensuring that these murders do not disappear from public memory. In 2024, part of Halskestraße was renamed “Châu-und-Lân-Straße”—a result of sustained civil society pressure. The ceremony at the Altonaer Museum was not an official, representative commemoration, but an act of remembrance shaped by those directly affected.
Dynamic Memory Lab “Nước Đức”
The day concluded with the opening of the Dynamic Memory Lab “Nước Đức. Vietnamese-German Migration History(ies),” curated by Dan Thy Nguyen and Nina Reiprich. The DML is CPPD’s central exhibition format: it is site-specific, responds to local needs of remembrance, and understands itself as a processual format—in contrast to closed exhibition narratives. The exhibition is dedicated to Vietnamese-German migration history in all its heterogeneity: contract labour in the GDR, flight and asylum, racist violence, and social participation. It makes visible that “German-Vietnamese history” is not a single, unified story, but a multi-perspectival and globally entangled one—and that its absence from dominant memory discourse is a political fact, not merely a gap. The opening attracted great interest; over 100 visitors attended. The exhibition will be on view at the Altonaer Museum until 6 July 2026.
Artistic Contributions to the Opening
The opening was densely accompanied by artistic contributions. Journalist Nhi Le read from her text “Part of the East,” in which she describes growing up as part of the second generation of Vietnamese-German families in East Germany—thus rendering Vietnamese-German experiences legible as a constitutive part of East German history, rather than as a marginal phenomenon. Minh Duc Pham developed, in a lecture performance, voices of migrants engaging with questions of solidarity, racism, and belonging. Illustrator Minh Voll presented the expanded edition of the exhibition catalogue “Nước Đức.” The evening was accompanied musically by the Lotus Ensemble with traditional Vietnamese music.
Networking Meeting on History Culture – Networks, Knowledge Transfer, Cooperation
On 13 and 14 March 2026, a two-day networking meeting titled “History Culture – Networks, Knowledge Transfer, Cooperation” followed in Hamburg, with numerous CPPD members participating as speakers and moderators.
Samuel Stern and Furkan Yüksel moderated a workshop on collective forms of remembrance and dialogical formats between different memory communities, focusing on how spaces for dialogue must be designed so that different experiences can genuinely enter into relation without one perspective dominating the other.
Nicole Schweiß and Igor Mitchnik led the workshop “Remembering the Present – How Do We Deal with Simultaneity?”, addressing one of the central challenges of contemporary memory work: the coexistence of multiple, sometimes competing claims to remembrance in an increasingly polarized society. CPPD curator Jo Frank spoke on the panel “Performance: Do We Need Rituals and What For?”—a question that gained particular urgency following the memorial ceremony during the festival day: what function do ritualized forms of remembrance serve, and when do they become an obstacle to a living practice of remembrance? In addition, the DML curators guided participants through the exhibition.
Outlook
The festival series “Voices Rising” will continue on 24 and 25 April 2026 at the Biblioteca de Alcântara – José Dias Coelho in Lisbon. Under the title “After the Carnations: Cycles of Decolonisation and Democratic Futures,” the Dynamic Memory Lab “Cycles of Decolonisation” will open there, focusing on European colonial history and contemporary decolonial processes.
Photos: Natalia Reich
