WARNING: The Humboldt Forum is looking to appropriate YOUR critique.

As with so many other Western cultural institutions, the Humboldt Forum presents itself as a container for public exchange. It attempts to establish itself as a forum ‘for all’: for debate, dialogue ‘between cultures’, the exchange of multiple perspectives, ’multidimensional visions’.

In short: it assumes neutrality. But a so-called ‘forum’ contained by a facade that was originally funded by the slave trade cannot ever be considered neutral or accessible ‘for all’.

When the Humboldt Forum stages a ‘debate’ on its website ‘for’ and ‘against’ an already-completed reconstruction of the cross and orb – symbols of Christian world domination – it pretends at neutrality. When the Humboldt Forum commissions so-called ’critical perspectives’ to spew out images of protest, including images appropriated from the Black Lives Matter movement, it pretends at neutrality. This pretence repeats the universalising gesture of Western cultural imperialism: a gesture that grasps to own everything, and that led to the theft of artefacts and bodies from ‘the colonies’ in the first place.

Thus please note: Cultural workers and others who seek to criticise this so-called forum ‘from within’ risk feeding its self-delusional attempt at neutrality.

We say: Defund the Humboldt Forum and redistribute the funds, now!