It is 1969. American jazz trumpeter Don Cherry meets South African bassist Johnny Dyani in Sweden. Two years later, Cherry, Dyani and the Turkish percussionist and drummer Okay Temiz take the stage in Paris for a live performance that becomes the album Blue Lake. Charged with the spirit of improvisation, Blue Lake plays like a raw meditation — urgent, unfiltered, alive.  

Years later, the Johnny Dyani Quartet records Song for Biko in Copenhagen. It is a rallying cry for Steve Biko, the South African activist who was assassinated by the apartheid government in 1977. Cherry’s trumpet threads through the piece, accompanying it with melodic, unbound emotional resonance. 

In the wake of the 1960s Black Civil Rights movement, the wave of African independence and the rise of Pan-African solidarity, Cherry and Dyani are intertwined through sound. Their collaboration is one of many meetings of Black life. 

Remnants begins here. What lingers in the archive? What breaths of Black life persist in its folds? What are the aural, visual, and tactile traces that hold both beauty and tension? ​Remnants​ pulls together a poetic constellation of gestures by living and departed artists, where pasts and presents meet in chorus. 

As a part of the exhibition there will be a special screening of the film Milisuthando (2023) directed by Milisuthando Bongela at Cinemateket, on Wednesday 22 october 16:30, followed with a Q&A between Milisuthando Bongela and curator Tawanda Appiah.

Curated by Tawanda Appiah.

Notes by Don Cherry (2025) is an installation built specifically for Remnants. Developed in collaboration with Don Cherry’s granddaughter, artist and musician Naima Karlsson, it brings together a selection of gestures from Cherry’s archive: photographs of live performances and everyday moments, handwritten music notations, drawings and various ephemera. Among these traces are moments with other artists and musicians​,​ including Johnny D​​y​​ani and Abdullah Ibrahim, in Sweden, Denmark and beyond. These materials form a kind of sonic and visual notation—a fragmented yet resonant score of a life lived in radical improvisation. The ensemble echoes American academic Christina Sharpe’s conception of notes as acts of witnessing, composition and care, foregrounding the intimate, collaborative and political dimensions of Cherry’s practice. 

Dancing Prophet (1971) is a lyrical meditation on Doug Crutchfield’s quest for freedom through dance. Directed by Bruce Baker, the film ​​traces​​ Crutchfield’s journey from Cincinnati to New York, then onward​s​ to Copenhagen and Lund. It embodies the spirit of dance in Crutchfield’s elegant movements, his stylised fingers stretching toward​s​ something deeply personal—his truth. Crutchfield fled the confines of Christianity for a liberation rooted in movement, spirit and the body. The film captures his vibrant presence and the quiet tension between faith and embodiment, belief and becoming. Yet, like many archival traces, Dancing Prophet reveals only a fragment. Crutchfield’s queerness, his navigation of racial and spiritual borders, and his imprint on Nordic performance linger in silence. These absences resist recovery but invite return, re-imagining​ and care.  

Established in 2017 by Kudzanai Chiurai, The Library of Things We Forgot to Remember is an audio-visual archive dedicated to Black resistance, solidarity and collaboration. It houses an extensive collection of sound recordings and works on paper linked to various liberation movements across the African continent and beyond. In Remnants, the library appears in the form of Chiurai’s ongoing installation Radio Freedom (2020–ongoing). The work borrows its name from the underground radio station of the South African liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC) and its ​​fighting wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation). Listening to Radio Freedom was banned by the apartheid government, with penalties ​​of​​ up to eight years in prison. The installation ​​recalls​​ the role of transnational guerrilla radio stations in building collective resistance and solidarity against colonial rule. 

Ellen Nyman’s artistic and activist project SPACECAMPAIGN is reactivated in Remnants through collaboration and close reading with art historian Nina Cramer. Traces of Nyman’s performances during the Danish elections of 2001 remain vivid in public memory, yet both documentation of these events and records of their reception are largely inaccessible today. She embodied the character Alem, a Black Muslim woman draped in yellow textile reminiscent of a chador, who appeared at political events to disrupt and challenge prevailing narratives—often provoking hostility and hate. In Remnants, this return to past performances resonates powerfully with the present moment, underscoring ongoing struggles around race, belonging, and politics. 

This We’re Not Making Up! (2016–17) by Simnikiwe Buhlungu is a silkscreen textile banner featuring its eponymous phrase against a saturated blue backdrop. Buhlungu describes her textile works as ​​‘​​time-stretching visual anthems​​’​​, emphasising their layered meanings and engagement with language as a flexible, evolving medium. The work invites reflection on how language shapes understandings of (Black) life and history. Within Remnants, the phrase asserts the presence of fact and truth in the archive, while also acknowledging the fragility of memory—where omission or alteration can shift meaning toward​s​ fiction. 

Wonga Mancoba (1946–2015) was born to painter Ernest Mancoba and Danish sculptor Sonja Ferlov Mancoba, both founding members of the CoBrA movement. Ernest Mancoba fled apartheid South Africa, and this legacy of political resistance flows through Wonga Mancoba’s work. His paintings, still under-recognised, are charged with symbolism and emotional intensity. They are haunted by the violence inflicted upon Black people—violence he resists through layered, poetic form. With a background in philosophy and a deep interest in Southern African cosmologies and symbolism, Mancoba’s draughtsmanship pulses with both intellectual inquiry and spiritual reflection. 

Don Cherry (1936–1995) was one of the most influential jazz musicians of the late 20th century, known for his pioneering role in free jazz. Born in Oklahoma City, USA, he was a founding member of Ornette Coleman’s groundbreaking quartet of the late 1950s. Primarily a trumpeter, he also played other instruments, blending musical genres through improvisation and a passion for non-Western traditions. Cherry lived in Sweden for many years, collaborating with his wife, the Swedish artist Moki Cherry, blending art, music, and community.  

Doug Crutchfield (1938–1989) was an American dancer and choreographer, best known for his extensive work in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Lund, Sweden, where he taught and performed for nearly 24 years. He taught at the Royal Danish Ballet School, the Copenhagen International School of Ballet, and at Lund University. His practice was rooted in classical ballet and modern dance traditions. 

Nina Cramer (1993) is an art historian and PhD candidate at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Arts and Cultural Studies​​.​​​​​ ​​H​​​er current research explores artistic practices and discourses of the African diaspora in Denmark from the 1980s to the 2020s.

Ellen Nyman (1971) is an actress, performance artist and theatre director. She is also a PhD candidate in Performing Art​​s​​ at Stockholm University of the Arts​,​ where she is​​ currently working on her research project ​​Performative ​​​S​​​​​​trategies, ​​​D​​​​​imensions of ​​​E​​​mancipation​​.     ​

Kudzanai Chiurai (1981) is an artist who lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe. He incorporates various media into his work, which ​largely focuse​​s​ on cycles of political and economic inequality​ and ​on ​conflict resolution in post-colonial societies. He has held numerous solo exhibitions and participated in various group exhibitions. 

Simnikiwe Buhlungu (1995) is an artist from Johannesburg, South Africa, currently based in Amsterdam, ​​the Netherlands​​​​​​. Interested in ​processes of ​knowledge production​ ​—​ ​how it is produced, by whom and how it is disseminated​ ​—​ ​Buhlungu locates socio-historical and everyday phenomena by navigating these questions and their inexhaustible potential answers via research-based methodologies. Through this, she maps points of cognisance which situate various layers of awareness as reverberating​​​​ ecologies.

Wonga Mancoba (1946–2015) was a Danish-South African painter and draughtsman who lived and worked in Paris. His work brings together stories of memory, struggle, folklore​ and the complexities of modern urban life. Though distinct from the work of his parents, the sculptor Sonja Ferlov Mancoba (1911-1984) and painter Ernest Mancoba (1904-2002), his practice remained in dialogue with their legacy. Through letters, public transport imagery, and advertising motifs, he created a world where past and future collide. 

Tawanda Appiah is a Zimbabwean curator, writer and researcher based in Malmö, Sweden. His research-cent​red practice often revisits history to make sense of the contemporary milieu. He is the curator at Skånes Konstförening and was formerly the Curator of Education at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Appiah has curated several exhibitions, public programs and interventions including ​FLIGHT​ (Malmö konsthall, 2023).

Special thanks to:

Ben Camara, Neneh Cherry, Albin Hillervik, Naima Karlsson, Estate Ferlov Mancoba and Kefiloe Siwisa.

Additional exhibition research:

Nina Cramer.

The exhibition is supported by:

The Aage & Johanne Louis-Hansen’s Foundation, The Augustinus Foundation, The Beckett Foundation, The Knud Højgaard Foundation, The Obel Family Foundation and New Carlsberg Foundation.

Wensday 1. October, 17:00 to 18:00

Tawanda Appiah: Guided Tour

Wednesday 22 October, 16:30–19:00

Milisuthando Bongela: MILISUTHANDO (2023)

Screening and a Q&A between the director and curator Tawanda Appiah

Thursday 23 October, 16:00–18:00

Milisuthando Bongela.

Author, filmmaker and artist Milisuthando Bongela will give a presentation on her practice. Among other things, she will dive into her work with her self-biographical documentary, Milisuthando (2023).

Saturday 15 November, 14:00–16:00

Event on Doug Cruchfield and SPACECAMPAIGN with Karen Arnfred Vedel, Ellen Nyman and Nina Cramer