Reparative Encounters: Repairing Danish Colonial Legacies through Arts-Based Collaboration
Name of applicant
Daniela Agostinho
Title
Associate Professor
Institution
Aarhus University
Amount
DKK 6,418,340
Year
2025
Type of grant
Semper Ardens: Accelerate
What?
Reparative Encounters investigates the relations, differences, and solidarities between the US Virgin Islands, Ghana, Kalaallit Nunaat, and the Faroe Islands, regions differently impacted by Danish colonialism. The project employs arts-based collaboration across these regions to generate dialogue between different colonial experiences and access overlooked perspectives through art creation.
Why?
We still know surprisingly little about how these different colonial legacies interrelate. Danish colonialism forcibly connected these regions through the movement of people and capital, but it also severed communities from their histories, identities, and cultural expressions. We contend that these legacies require reparative approaches that can be developed through artistic collaboration.
How?
Our approach employs arts-based collaboration between scholars, artists and curators from all the cited regions. The project combines artist residencies in all the locations; a traveling exhibition; and interdisciplinary seminars alongside the exhibitions to foster innovative dialogue between fields such as visual culture, artistic research, art history, anthropology and postcolonial studies.