The Brooklyn Rail

I met Professor Lisa Farrington in 2011, when I was an artist-in-residence at CUNY and where I later became a professor of drawing and sculpture in her department. She was present when I completed the official documents and registration forms—one of which asked, “What race do you belong to?” I had never encountered this question before, and something inside me recoiled. In my country, Germany, the word race is deeply charged; it carries with it the dark legacy of Nazi ideology.

As a German, I am painfully aware of the history of racism and the atrocities committed in its name. Under National Socialism, a radical racial theory was institutionalized. At its core was the belief that humanity was divided into distinct races, and that one—“the Aryan race”—was destined to dominate. Jews were the principal targets for extermination, but others were also persecuted: people with disabilities, the sick, Sinti and Roma, and those who were deemed “other” by language, skin color, or origin. Nazi ideology cast these groups as threats to the purity and advancement of the so-called Aryan race.

One of the first steps in this ideology was the forced sterilization of individuals with perceived hereditary conditions, legalized through a law passed in July 1933. This policy escalated into mass murder under the codename “Aktion T4.” People with disabilities were transported to killing centers and murdered by gas or lethal injection. These crimes were not only driven by propaganda but also enabled by widespread societal acceptance—or indifference.

Against this background, the word race is far from neutral. It echoes with violence, exclusion, and suffering. And yet, through my artwork and my travels, I have also experienced something radically different. Meeting people from diverse cultures has profoundly shaped my life and artistic practice. I walked through the Dogon Valley in Mali, where people shared with me their earth-building techniques and ritual dances. In Ethiopia, Coptic Christians introduced me to the leather pouches that hold their sacred books—an inspiration for my own “traveling library of life.” In Guatemala, I encountered Maya pictograms and the resilience of indigenous communities. During long stays in India, I worked with local materials and learned from men building bamboo scaffolding, and from women how to carry heavy loads with balance and grace. In Pakistan, Muslims welcomed me into their cemeteries and allowed me to create a small miracle (in the form of an art installation) in that sacred space.

Everywhere I went, I met people who were open to connection—not because of my skin color, but in spite of it. They did not see me as a representative of the white race, or as a descendant of Nazis or colonizers. They recognized, instead, that I had come to listen, to learn, and to understand. That trust, and the curiosity that flows from it, continue to shape my life and my work.

This year, I traveled through Patagonia—drawing, photographing, and learning from what the land and its people had to teach me. I came into contact with the Mapuche, the people of the earth, who are courageously defending their environment and ancestral territory from exploitation. As descendants of the region’s original inhabitants, the Mapuche resist the plundering of their resources and assert their rights in the face of ongoing injustice. I have begun weaving their words into my latest work.

Today, more than ever, we need words of resistance and wisdom. We must learn—daily, urgently—because the world is changing rapidly. We need to hear new voices and see new images of this multifaceted, fragile, and powerful world.

Perhaps there was a time before racism—before white supremacy was asserted through violence, before weapons became tools of domination, before guilt and conquest were etched into history. But if such a time ever existed, it was too long ago.

We must not divide humanity by race. We must not assign different values to the northern and southern hemispheres of our planet. Every person—regardless of skin color—must have the opportunity to contribute to a more nuanced and humane vision of the world: through their work, their experiences, their research, and their art.

And I am grateful to have met Dr. Farrington, whose knowledge and example regarding the intersection of art and race continue to inspire me.

This world should be complex, diverse, and full of wonder. Art can help lead the way—by placing contrasting perspectives side by side and allowing them to form, almost magically, a greater whole. It is in this coexistence of difference that something new, something truly human, can emerge.

I would like to end with the words of Margot Friedländer, a Shoah survivor, who, at the age of 103, spoke for the last time with urgency: “Be human. There is no Christian, no Muslim, no Jewish blood. There is only human blood.”