Attack on Kerala-born artist Sajan Mani in Berlin ‘shocking’, says German Embassy spokesperson

Mani, 41, was waiting at a bus shelter with artist Mila Panic when he was attacked by a man and hit repeatedly on the back of his head with a stick. “It was unprovoked. I did not know this person. I was screaming for help,” Mani told The Indian Express from a hospital in Berlin.

He added, “Luckily, some people came and the police also reached the spot.”

 

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Mani said he has multiple injuries, “I have got 30 stitches on the head and also one ear. There are also several bruises.”

Immediately after the attack, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Mani had shared details of the incident in a video on Instagram. “This is the everyday reality of a migrant artist in Germany,” he had stated. He added, “Me and artists I know have experienced discrimination and racism before, but not like this.”

Mani said a police complaint has been filed and the attacker has been identified. He is deliberating further action.

Based in Germany since 2016, Mani was awarded the Berlin Art Prize in 2021 and the 2022 Prince Claus Mentorship Award. His works often use his own “Black Dalit body” as a socio-political metaphor. “I am interested in the body and the concepts of time and space – the body and its limits, endurance and a black Dalit body’s existence. My performances attempt to evoke pain, shame, power and fear… I am looking for erased histories and non-archived histories of the Dalit and non-indigenous bodies,” he had said in an interview with The Indian Express in February 2023.

Born into a family of rubber tappers in Kerala, Mani also worked for two years as a migrant labourer in the Gulf, before practising as a visual design artist in Bengaluru. He was associated with the first edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012 as a member of the editorial team.