Contested Desires: Constructive Dialogues UK Exhibition launch and programme

CONTESTED DESIRES: Constructive Dialogues is an ambitious conversation between contemporary artists and the museums, archives and communities that shape our colonial histories.

From Europe to Africa and to South America, the artists explore complex and interwoven themes of identity, appropriation, power and memory. They ask what are the impacts of colonial heritage today and whose stories do we hear? 

Rafael Guendelman Hales (Chile), Elisabeth Efua Sutherland (Ghana), Isaac Nana Opoku (Ghana), Andreas Mallouris (Cyprus), Maria Luigia Gioffre (Italy), Patrick Ziza (UK) and Paul Nataraj (UK), bring CONTESTED DESIRES to the North East of England for a special exhibition at the Great North Museum: Hancock. By inviting us to consider new perspectives on the legacies of Europe’s colonial past, they also look to the future and the choices to be made.

The UK exhibition and programme produced by D6: Culture in Transit is part of CONTESTED DESIRES, a large-scale cultural project exposing the problematic legacy of European colonisation found in museums and heritage sites, aiming to encourage a deeper understanding of colonialism and its legacies. CONTESTED DESIRES sets out to facilitate environments of care where artists, partners and communities can be supported to reveal and challenge the colonial roots of many of today’s global injustices. Following residencies in Chile, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK, the artists will further develop their ideas during residencies at D6’s studios in Newcastle, connecting with local historians, museums, community organisations and audiences.

Clymene Christoforou, Director, D6: Culture in Transit: “In a world of protectionist national policies, cuts to international development funds and mainstream political rhetoric stoking division, we more than ever need conversations that navigate harmful and polarising acts and their far-reaching consequences. The CONTESTED DESIRES artists create bridges for us to reflect on how our contemporary culture and society is entangled with the power play and complexities of Europe’s colonial past. Through extraordinary artworks they capture diverse shared histories, standing in solidarity with those facing injustice, then and now.”

Malavika Anderson, Museum Manager at the Great North Museum: Hancock, said: “At the Great North Museum: Hancock, we are delighted to be working closely with D6 to present this exhibition. Now, more than ever, it is crucial for us to reflect on and question our shared histories and their implications in today’s world. It felt very important for us to present this work in our museum, surrounded by objects and collections that in many ways symbolise the very questions that the artists have been working with.”

Partners and funders

Thank you to our funders: CONTESTED DESIRES is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. In the UK we are grateful for support from Arts Council England, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and the Newcastle Culture Investment Fund.

Special thanks to the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle University, Sangini, South Tyneside Cultural Partnership, Tyne Coast College and North East of England African and Caribbean Community Association for supporting the exhibition and programme in the UK.

D6: Culture in Transit is part of CONTESTED DESIRES: Constructive Dialogues, a Creative Europe funded international programme with 22 artists and 20 arts and heritage partners across Chile, Cyprus, Ghana, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Tunisia and the UK.

Artists

Rafael Guendelman Hales (Chile) 

Residencies with: Museo della Civiltà (Italy) | D6 (UK) | Xarkis (Cyprus)

Rafael spent time at the archives and collections of the Museo della Civiltà in Rome, where he was struck by the maps and diaries of colonial explorers, including Padre Coppi’s explorations in Amazonia and the former Italian colonies in East Africa. During his research, Rafael addressed the relationship that exists between the idea of civilisation and the representations of it present in the museum. He plans to build on the idea of the explorer’s notebook, drawing on the collection at the Great North Museum: Hancock and hosting workshops.

Rafael is a visual artist and documentary filmmaker, exploring the dynamic relationship between human beings and their environment.

Chile was first conquered by the Spanish 1500’s who ruled until 1817.  In 1973, with  the backing of America, a right wing coup ousted the socialist president Allende, putting in his place Augusto Pinochet whose rule of terror dominated the next 17 years. The Museum of Memory and Human Rights, commemorating the victims of his reign hosted Contested Desires artists Emiddio Vasquez (Cyprus) and Patrick Ziza (UK) in Spring 2025. Today Chile is also home to five thousand people of Palestinian heritage who came in the 1800’s to escape the Ottoman army and again following the 1967 six-day war between Israel and the Arab states.

Elisabeth Efua Sutherland (Ghana)

Residencies with: D6 (UK) | H401 and Creative Court (Netherlands) | Xarkis (Cyprus)

Elisabeth is concerned with layered colonial histories, following bodies through different geographies and spaces by diving into images, texts, maps, landscapes, and traces of feet and where they once trod. Her research is driven by a desire to map stories, bodies and mythologies, and to examine the visibility (or lack of) and curation of black and African histories. She immersed herself in Newcastle’s history during her D6 residency – mapping stories of black and African people who visited the city or made it their home. She will present new installation and performance based works in relation to the possibilities of creating an embodied map of black experiences located in the city.

Elisabeth comes from a background in theatre and dance. She is the founder of Terra Alta, an artist-led performing arts space in Accra.

The modern state of Ghana is named for the African empire, which flourished up to the 13th century.  Then came the Europeans from the 1400’s. First the Portuguese seeking gold and trade, and by the mid-18th century coastal forts controlled by Dutch, British or Danish merchants. For almost 150 years, Ghana was the centre of the British transatlantic trafficking of enslaved people. The British declared the Gold Coast a colony in 1874 with Ghana winning independence in 1957. Three years before Cyprus, and 18 years before the Dutch withdrew from Suriname.

Isaac Nana Opoku (Ghana) 

Residencies with: Museo della Civiltà (Italy) | D6 (UK) | Xarkis (Cyprus)

Influenced by weaving and indigenously produced fabrics, Nana is exploring the impact of colonial heritage on contemporary artisanal culture and textile production. During their residency in Rome, they researched the colonial collections at the Museo della Civiltà. In response to this experience, they will present a large-scale textile containing handwritten reflections and sketches that capture moments of insight, discomfort and revelation. The interconnected squares act as encrypted vessels of meaning: mirroring how traditional African textiles encoded messages, histories and cultural knowledge within their designs.

Nana’s practice aims to ‘decolonise imagination’ by investigating alternative ways of being and challenging established paradigms. They represented Ghana for the Venice Biennale in 2022.

The Museo Della Civilta was built during the Fascist Dictatorship of 1922-1945, housing the spoils of an empire that was founded in Africa in the 19th century and included Libya, Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. Imperialism in Italy dates back to ancient Rome and the Latin notion of Mare Nostrum (referring to the Mediterranean) and the basis for later Italian Imperialism, particularly during the fascist era.

As above: The modern state of Ghana is named for the African empire, which flourished up to the 13th century.  Then came the Portuguese  from the 1400’s and by the mid-18th century coastal forts were controlled by Dutch, British or Danish merchants. For almost 150 years, Ghana was the centre of the British transatlantic trafficking of enslaved people. The British declared the Gold Coast a colony in 1874 with Ghana gaining independence in  1957. Three years before Cyprus, and 18 years before the Dutch withdrew from Suriname.

Andreas Mallouris (Cyprus)

Residencies with: D6 (UK) | Pro Progressione (Hungary) | Xarkis (Cyprus)

Andreas explores ideas of vulnerability and care centring on queer lived experiences. He lives in Cyprus where the legacy of British rule remained beyond Independence in 1960, with homosexuality illegal until 1998. Andreas was keen to explore the UK context today and the dissonance between the more progressive LGBTQI+ laws and attitudes and the traumatising institutional practices that demand ‘proof’ for queer people seeking sanctuary in the UK.

In Newcastle Andreas spent time with queer gardening club TopSoil, leading him on his return to Cyprus to establish a new gardening initiative for people seeking sanctuary as part of Koraï, an artist-run space he co-founded in Nicosia. Andreas’ work encompasses sculpture, drawings, videos and performance. These experiences informed new work across film, sculpture and photography, which he will share at the Great North Museum: Hancock.

Cyprus has a long history of colonisation – from the Phoenicians, Romans, Venetians, Ptolemies, Luisignians, Ottomans and the British, through to the division of the island today following the right-wing coup in 1974 and subsequent invasion by Turkey. This complex history plays out in national and local identities today. 

Maria Luigia Gioffre (Italy) | Waiting Wars

Residencies with: Kunstfort and H401 (NL) | D6 (UK) | Xarkis (Cyprus)

Maria’s live art, performance and text works draw on anthropologies, mythologies and uncertain futures to expand and erode historical references. Her residency in the Netherlands took her to Fort bij Vijfhuizen – a Unesco World Heritage Site that was originally designed to defend Amsterdam from a potential enemy who never came. In response, and in the context of a significant rise of military spending in Europe, she created the first chapter of Waiting Wars, looking at the fort’s history in the critical framework of reflections on the colonial past of the European Union and using chants and dance movements as tools of resistance. In a live performance, she will present the second chapter of Waiting Wars.

Maria’s practice encompasses visual art, theatre, performance, writing and curatorship. She is undertaking a PhD in performing arts and new media at The National Academy of Dramatic Arts, Rome. 

The Fort bij Vijfhuizen was built in 1867 when the Dutch colonial Empire remained strong. At its height the Dutch Empire spanned colonies or outposts in Eastern North America, the Caribbean, South America (Suriname and Brazil), Western and Southern Africa, mainland India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Japan and Taiwan, with Suriname the last to gain independence in 1975.