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A headshot of Eyal, a man with a beard and glassesDavid Ausserhofer / Robert Bosch Academy

Goethe Annual Lecture 2024
 Unravelling Colonial Crimes in Namibia: Forensic Architecture in Germany

For the Goethe Annual Lecture 2024, we proudly welcomed Prof Eyal Weizman MBE as our guest speaker. He is a life fellow of the British Academy and in 2020 received an MBE for services to architecture. Weizman spoke about Forensic Architecture, the organisation he leads, which in 2010 grew out of the Centre for Architectural Research at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Forensic Architecture is an interdisciplinary research agency operating across human rights, journalism, architecture, art and aesthetics, academia and the law, with projects all over the world - from Bogota to Namibia – interrogating instances of state and corporate violence. They are the recent recipients of the Right Livelihood Prize 2024.



 

Weizman's lecture discussed the history of Forensic Architecture’s work and the concepts and principles that guide them across all projects.

He covered the opportunities and challenges experienced by their Berlin-based sister agency Forensis, as well as a series of projects they have conducted in partnership with Ovaherero and Nama activists and traditional leadership on the genocide perpetrated by Imperial Germany, in what is today Namibia.

Weizman also discussed cases of state violence in Germany such as the handling of the NSU murders in the early 2000s and of the racist terror attack in Hanau (2020).

The lecture was followed by a Q&A, moderated by Annette Dittert, Senior Correspondent for ARD German TV in London since 2008.

Supported by the Friends of the Goethe-Institut London. 
 




 

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