Crafting a Life: A Participatory Art Project on the Life and Legacy of Theodor Wonja Michael
by Cheryl McIntosh and the Theodor Wonja Michael Library
Join us for a series of four participatory art workshops that invite you to engage, reflect, and create together. Inspired by the life of Theodor Wonja Michael (1925-2019)—a key figure in Afro-German history—this project weaves storytelling and textile art into a shared, collective experience.
Born during the Weimar Republic as the son of a Cameroonian father and an East Prussian mother, Michael’s life journey traversed some of the most violent and oppressive periods of German history. From being forced to perform in so-called human zoos and appearing in Nazi propaganda films, to becoming a powerful voice after World War II as a journalist and author advocating for Black people in Germany—his story is one of resilience, resistance, and transformation. His autobiography, Deutsch Sein und Schwarz Sein (2015) ...