The performance The Past is Present deals with a very current and critical topic: the origin and the demanded restitution of thousands of artefacts that European museums have gained directly or indirectly through colonialist exploitation and looting. In context of the exhibition what will be. Towards a Plurality of Futures, the performance took place within Ogiamien's sculptural installation, in which Beninese bronze art, whose roots lie in spiritual-ritual contexts, and Western-modern sculptural traditions meet. Samson Ogiamien, who trained as a sculptor both in Benin City and at the Ortweinschule in Graz, showed the result of mutual cultural fertilisation in his hybrid-looking works: the artist as mediator and intermediary between cultures as well as between tradition, modernity and the present. Through the dance of contemporary ancestral masks to traditional music from the Kingdom of Benin, Nigeria, the exhibited objects, which refer to the artefacts mentioned at the beginning, were brought to new life.

Performer: Samson Ogiamien, Amowie Austin John, Michael Imhansuomon, Jeffrey Aghahuwa, Evans Eguagie Osazee, Tadjik Fazlolah