By Jun.-Prof. Dr. Julia Binter and Joanne Rodriguez

Second Chapter: Summer

Liquid Archive

What memories does water hold?

The video work Mother Tongue (2020) shows the artist Jasmine Togo-Brisby together with her mother and daughter at the wreck of the Don Juan — a ship connected to so-called blackbirding: the abduction of Pacific Islanders and their indentured labour on sugar plantations in Australia.

Across generations, these histories persist — in the body, the land and in the sea. There, the water becomes a “liquid archive” in which loss, resistance, and care are embedded.

Drawing on their own family history, the photo series From Bones and Bellies (2021) transforms the women’s bodies into memorials to colonial violence while also bearing witness to resilience, survival, and healing.

The exhibition explores the ongoing legacy of a destructive form of Knowing Plants: the plantation system, which relied on the exploitation of plants, people, and ecosystems.

Jasmine Togo-Brisby is a fourth-generation Australian South Sea Islander with roots in Ambae and Santo, Vanuatu. She lives and works in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The exhibition is part of the research-exhibition project “Knowing Plants. Ecologies of Memory and Practice” at the Global Heritage Lab, University of Bonn.

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Opening hours Global Heritage Lab: Wed-Sun 2 – 6pm, Global Heritage Lab at P26, Poststraße 26, 53111 Bonn.

Entrance fee for P26: €4.50 / €2.50 (reduced) / free (students at University of Bonn)

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