Flooded by Mail

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 was the end of fine dining at Tate Britain in 2022. (It took a while to get there.) So, what now? Our little book of little strategies tries to row back and figure out a way forward. In order to understand 500 years or so, one or two oceans and two or more continents, as well as why "George Floyd" is key for wherever we are, we can begin in 2009 in Germany with the collapse of one of the institutions that had been integral in collecting 500 years or so of European shares of this story: The Cologne City Archive, which, out of the European blue, no longer could handle the sudden pressure of water from a failed construction process of urban infrastructure. Standing in front of the gaping hole in the middle of a German metropolis, one begins to wonder. So much history suddenly unleashed, spilling out or disintegrating. So many supposed treasures trashed for years or forever, so many unwanted, never thought-of additions and several more dead. What is clear as daylight in the mud is that this once established and exemplary order will not, cannot and should not be fully pieced together the way it was set up. Following the lead of Cologne's chaotic vertical materiality, "Flooded by Mail" will embark on a journey from hole to hole and follow the trail of the money that George Floyd had in his pocket.