Pocahunter,

I am your body, your soul, your spirit

we are one and yet we are not

I was nine years old

Disney’s Pocahontas appeared in cinemas in Berlin

that was 1995

colonial exoticising and racist imaginations, looks and questions 

renewed themselves

created you 

pierced me

you are Pocahontas risen from the grave in England

in your first life your name was Matoaka, you were the daughter of the Powhatan

they kidnapped you, abducted you, changed your name 

I do not know what atrocities you had to endure

they say you died on the way back to your homeland

now are you here

or always were

a zombie - Pocahunter

a dream/terror - Pocahunter

walking ancestor

with evolving names

you have found no peace in the lower world

haunting people in their nightmares

John Smith’s head dangles from your belt

you walk through all times

you do not belong to the past, nor to the present, nor to the future

and yet you exist in all of them at the same time

you walk in the in-between, the liminal-space 

where all contradictions come together

you transform yourself constantly

you are neither death nor life

you die again and again

and awake 

I am your body, your soul, your spirit,

we are one and yet we are not

Photography: Kurt Prinz, concept: Verena Melgarejo Weinandt

June 2022

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