Sufferhead Original – Munich Edition, 2019
Installation with video, projection and bottles, dimensions variable
Sufferhead Original – Munich Edition is a conceptual craft beer project by Emeka Ogboh, which he has now developed in a Munich edition following those created for the cities of Kassel, Frankfurt, Baden-Baden and Paris. The project centers on a specially brewed beer and an ad campaign to go with it, featuring a TV commercial and posters. The Sufferhead Original concept combines product and product advertisement to explore the African presence in contemporary Europe. This is achieved by brewing a stout together with local breweries influenced by the food tastes and experiences of Africans living in Europe. The name Sufferhead Original was inspired by a song by Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti that deals with the precarious situation in Nigeria in the 1980s. In the course of his project, Ogboh uses the title of the song as astarting point for discourse about the political treatment of ethnicity, different ideas of what constitutes a nation, and processes of migration. By using the language of commercial advertising Ogboh obscures the realms between art and marketing while making connections between Europe’s notions of purity, its African immigrant community, and the immigrant experience. Featuring the slogan “Wer hat Angst vor Schwarz?” (“Who’s afraid of black?”), the accompanying campaign echoes populist fears of mass migration and being culturally overwhelmed by “foreigners.”
