Zandile Darko & Family

Hop in and experience a truly special performance on four wheels with “Taxi Darko”! Taxi driver Bernard Darko and his daughter, the artist Zandile Darko, take the audience on a moving journey from A—back then in Ghana—to B—as in today’s Hamburg. What lies between are memories, souvenirs, language and music, and the unheard stories of a (not-so-small) German community.

The journey begins at Kampnagel, where three hosts guide the audience onto the first trail and into three large-capacity taxis, immersed in a sound collage. Outside, the city rushes by; inside, conversations, music by Fela Kuti, fragments of memories, paths, dreams, and questions unfold. The hour-long ride takes place on main roads and side streets alike—its stage is the cushioned seats and the interior of the vehicle.

Zandile Darko’s CV includes a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation, multiple international Master’s degrees, and her own productions. But in this performance, she creates space for her father’s stories. Because she and he never had a shared language. Between German, Twi, and English, their speech has always been a search “for a place between languages, constantly creating a hybrid space in which communication becomes possible at all.”

The Darkos follow the principle of autohistoria, as described by feminist scholar Gloria Anzaldúa: “This form [of autohistoria] goes beyond the traditional self-portrait or autobiography; it is a way for us to generate history, to invent our history from our own experience and through our own art, rather than merely accepting the version offered by the dominant society.”

Bernard Darko takes the audience of “Taxi Darko” along for his shift—and into his world. “You have mouth but you cannot talk,” he says, speaking of his everyday life, and the stations of a life lived in the in-between, in pop and memory culture. Growing up in Ghana, travelling to Germany, years spent driving a taxi—including driving his daughters to school—he heard thousands of stories. And in which, since everyone has mobile phones, people speak less and less.

“Get in the car! And let me walk you a mile in my shoes …”