Goodbye to forever now.
Hello to the empty present and.
Goodbye to the orchids woven
With something that looks like a seed weed.

Hello to the day
We looked out through
The juniper smudge
Burned to remember the moment.

The doctoring moment is over.
A sheaf of paper drops like lead
From the tree of the table it came from.
The eyes play tricks.

The quilt edge clasped in the hand
Goes on and on and on.
Rumination is this. You
A child, then a man, now a feather

Passing through a furious fire
Called time. The cone of some plant
From a place I don't know
In the high flames.

Rumination is and won't stop
With the stoppered bottle, the pills
On the floor, the broken plate
On the floor, the sleeping face

—Mary Jo Bang, excerpt from ‘No More’ 

It is with endlessly deep sadness and pain that we at Haus der Kulturen der Welt announce the passing of our colleague, friend, and brother Franck Hermann Ekra!

Franck was an outstanding curator, a formidable thinker, an astute art critic, and a fervent ‘trans-Africanist’ (the term he preferred to pan-Africanist). Besides his ingenious professional work, one of his greatest loves was bringing people he loved, respected, and admired together. For he believed that even birds of different feathers needed to flock together in community if they had a common purpose—and that’s how he built networks across continents.

At HKW, Franck played an important role directly and indirectly in the conceptualization, realization, and support of several projects. Most especially, in 2025 he co-curated with Ibou Diop the project Deberlinization: Refabulating the World, A Theory of Praxis, a series of conversations, talks, poetry readings, music, and film screenings with some forty contributors inspired by the work of artist Mansour Ciss Kanakassy and his Laboratoire de Déberlinisation within the framework of the heimaten project. Over the past few weeks, we have been in conversation about Franck’s presence at the launch event for the Deberlinization Festschrift, the publication resulting from this programme, which he co-edited.

In this moment of deep distress and sadness, we think of and send most heartfelt condolences to his mother, children, and family at large, as well as to his friends and colleagues across the globe.

May his transition be a smooth one, and may the ancestors receive him with grace and many blessings. We have been privileged to have encountered, upon our passage through this time-space, this beautiful and kind soul with deep love for poetry and interminable Lebenslust.

Travel well, Franck Hermann Ekra! You came to this world as ‘A child, then a man, now a feather / Passing through a furious fire / Called time.’ May this feather float gently to the greater beyond and settle well with and amongst other feathers of greatness and wonder! Safe voyage, le Poéticien!

Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung