History is His Story

they say that history repeats itself
but history is only his story
you haven’t heard my story yet
my story is different from his story
my story is not part of history
because history repeats itself
but my story is endless it never repeats itself
why should it?

– Sun Ra

History is His Story is a group exhibition that expands on the mythical world as described by the musician, poet and visionair, Sun Ra. At a young age, he became fascinated by the scientific research of Cheikh Anta Diop: one of the founders of Pan-Africanism, scientist, linguist and politician, who believed he could prove that the Egyptians were black. That there were black thinkers and rulers at the fundament of civilization encouraged Sun Ra – who was born Herman Blount but legally changed his name to Le Sony’r Ra in 1952 — thus naming himself after the Egyptian sun god Ra – to explore cultural heritage. Within the domain of art, performance and music – Sun Ra created a means for people to take possession of a more fair narrative in history and subsequently a future in society. For Sun Ra, history, as it was commonly portrayed in Western cultures, was a lie, an illusion used to exert power over other cultures. He wanted to offer an alternative conception of history and therefore focused on myth. He argued that the Afro-American community needed a ‘mythocracy’ rather than a democracy, that an alternative historical narrative for Afro-Americans might be found in myth. He employed myth to escape western rational thought offering instead a more holistic, magical world view.

History is His Story reacts to social and political phenomena and allows for mythical knowledge to add nuance to history or visualize a more egalitarian future. In History is His Story artists seek an in-between- space: a place of visual language without beginning and end. The ancient past and the distant future unite in a temporary new world. The artists have a shared interest in making new mythologies and reinterpreting those that already exist. More than looking into the future, they orient themselves on the methodology of Sun Ra – the questioning of heritage and its reinterpretation.