Beacon of Truth

“LICHT der Wahrheit” [Beacon of Truth] is proposed as the Decolonial Memorial (Dekoloniales Denkzeichen) for the Global Village entry plaza and is composed of two main elements: 
A. A ground installation highlighting historical Laws, Voices and Struggle during the German colonial era… plus
B. A poetic, and functional, sculpture resembling a 19.C Street-lamp at a height of 7,5 M.

A. Foundational Roots–
The historical quotations will be permanently printed on the pavement utilizing paint used for high traffic conditions, responding to 3 categories of selections; 
1. German colonial law/regulation 
Selected legal excerpts from German colonial law/rulings serve as the foundational basis for the German colonial empire. They are highlighted as evidence for the broader historical Empire project, including the Kongo-Konferenz ( Berlin-Conference) of 1884/85, among other primary sources.
2. Voices of Resistance –
Notable voices of resistance from the German colonial territories are not silenced but rather juxtaposed. These citations offer pedestrians an entryway into a topic that remains obscure in the German public imagination. This selection within the framework of German colonial rule aims to cite each territory. It is foreseen to incorporate additional female voices with scholarly input in order to enrich the diversity of this content-based installation. The enriched plaza may serve as a pedagogical tool to foster conversation, focusing on colonial rulings, rebellions, or the various voices of resistance.
3. Anti-colonial struggles.
The entrance plaza will be framed by a running list of anti-colonial struggles in a semi-continuous red-stripe indicating the places and dates of rebellion during the former German colonies of Africa and Asia, using the names known in the respective countries where the rebellions occurred.

Note that the material choices of this project reflect a decolonial-aesthetic from the re-appropriation of material histories. Diamond dust as a bi-product of colonial plunder is the critical feature that offers this projects legibility utilizing high-reflective white glass-beaded traffic paint and a lineage to it use on the pedestrian sidewalks and streets of Europe. By contrast the second and prominent component utilizes the metaphor of rusted ruins and the poetics of light.

B. LICHT / Beacon
Historical lamps are well regarded in Berlin and all over Europe as evolutionary symbols of modernity and civilization. The lamp's familiarity with its traditional aesthetic order and cannon, including the Prussian/German motifs, is here recomposed and re-assembled out of previously existing parts into a unique collage-fragment ensemble.  This is how a common and often disregarded piece of urban furniture is transformed through this project as a metaphor for the colonial presence that is often hidden in plain-sight pervasively in public space.
 
The streetlamp sculpture stands prominently, rising to a height of 7.5m, from the foundational roots of German colonial Law and struggle. 
The surface patina of the central lamp-mast offers a rich metal rust color instead of the gloss or chrome, and echoes the symbolism of ruins still visible today in Africa and Asia left by the legacies of colonial forces. 
The central pole is tilted slightly forward at 5º for visual tension, imbued with the poetic force of a feather above the lantern.