Ken Aïcha Sy: Survival Kit – Between Us and History: The Hidden Archive

The intimate relationship between a family archive and the collective dimension of a shared heritage: The history of contemporary Senegalese painting from 1960-1990. From June 20, the new exhibition at the ifa Gallery Berlin presents for the first time in Germany the central results of the five-year research and investigation project Survival Kit by curator and cultural activist Ken Aïcha Sy on the key moments in contemporary Senegalese painting between 1960 and 1990. The second part of the exhibition project will be shown at the ifa Gallery Stuttgart from October.

Opening: Thursday, 19 June 2025, 19:00
Public Programme: Friday, 20 June 2025, 11:00–17:30
Exhibition: 20 June – 31 August 2025

Starting from a personal and familial archive, researcher and curator Ken Aïcha Sy, born and raised in Senegal and daughter of journalist and cultural activist Anne Jean Bart and of the artist and curator El Hadji Sy, identifies and focuses on a series of cultural initiatives, artistic movements and collectives that ultimately define the history of contemporary Senegalese art. This cultural heritage has been scattered across many different places outside the African continent and is largely unknown to the Senegalese. Her research took Ken Aïcha Sy to archives in Great Britain, and as far as Germany, including the Iwalewahaus of the University of Bayreuth and the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt am Main, one of the first ethnological museums in Germany to collect contemporary art, particularly from Africa.

The exhibition Survival Kit – Between Us and History: The Hidden Archive will be presented across both ifa Gallery spaces — first in Berlin, then in Stuttgart. Through two distinct scenographies, it explores a shared focus: the intimate link between a family archive and the collective dimension of a shared heritage — the history of contemporary Senegalese painting from 1960 to 1990. Featuring a selection of works from German museum collections, the exhibition aims to bring these artists out of storage and into public view, shedding new light on their artistic legacy.

Survival Kit is not just a collection of objects or documents: it’s a fragment of living memory, a heritage in motion. Through this exhibition, I want to offer a fresh, international perspective on the works and stories that have shaped – and are still shaping – the Senegalese art scene. This dialogue between the intimate and the global invites us to rethink the way in which heritage, when it circulates beyond its origins, becomes a shared language, a vehicle for resilience, creativity and identity. – Ken Aïcha Sy

The project also engages German cultural institutions and aims to spark a dialogue around African archives and heritage. Survival Kit activates these spaces to explore tensions, bridges, and the possibilities of restitution — setting narratives and perspectives into motion.

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