Black Pott Stories – Artists from the Ruhr region
Dates:
Fri 13.02.26
18:30
Venue:
WerkStadt
Viktoriastraße 5
45327 Essen
Deutschland
Admission
from 18:00
Participation
We kindly ask you to register in advance by emailing werkstadt@pact-zollverein.de
Further information
The event is open to everyone, but is primarily aimed at Black people and people from the African diaspora. Individuals without lived experience are welcome – we kindly ask for respectful and thoughtful participation that is mindful of the sensitivity of the topic.
1 / 4 © Anton Vichrov
Dates:
Fri 13.02.26
18:30
Venue:
WerkStadt
Viktoriastraße 5
45327 Essen
Deutschland
Admission
from 18:00
Participation
We kindly ask you to register in advance by emailing werkstadt@pact-zollverein.de
Further information
The event is open to everyone, but is primarily aimed at Black people and people from the African diaspora. Individuals without lived experience are welcome – we kindly ask for respectful and thoughtful participation that is mindful of the sensitivity of the topic.
What does it mean to be Black in Germany, in the Ruhr region, in everyday life? Which stories are shared, which often go unheard?
Black Pott Stories creates a space for Black perspectives, exchange, and curious listening. In conversations and artistic contributions, Cate Lartey and Carlos Carima share their experiences as freelance artists and provide insights into their work, careers, and stories. The evening will be moderated by spoken word artist and writer Orliane Kamwa Kemadjou.
In addition to personal perspectives, the focus will be on community, social sustainability, and networking. The evening will also feature BLAST, the new Black regulars' table for people in Essen that fosters exchange, empowers, and enables to create something together.
We will conclude the evening by gathering for a warm soup and engaging in conversation with each other in an open and supportive atmosphere.
Cate Lartey is the founder of Black Archive Germany, a project that showcases Black history and everyday culture in Germany through private photographs from the 1970s to the early 2000s. The collection documents moments of social life, fashion, and community, offering a glimpse into spaces of experience that have been little documented until now. The aim is to bring together personal photographs, preserve them, and make the resulting material accessible in the long term in a book publication.
Carlos Carima is a painter born in Angola. He graduated with honors from Hochschule für Bildende Künste Essen with a degree in painting and participated in the Art Toll residency in Bedburg-Hau in 2023. His works move between figurative representation, autobiographical elements, and a new tradition of Black magical realism. With intense colorfulness, Carima negotiates memory, spirituality, and collective healing. The bodies depicted carry their own dignity—as beings whose lives lie in the future, brought forth from inner image archives and family albums and revived on canvas.