Where Art and Digital World Warfare Overlap: A Conversation With Berto Herrera About the PANAFTICON Exhibition 

Berto Herrera, one of 15 artists featured in the PANAFTICON exhibition at Loods 6 in Amsterdam, shares his insights on a thought-provoking show. This multimedia art group exhibition, curated by Wes Mapes, embodies our fears around surveillance, censorship and government control, and rewraps it into something conceptually beautiful. Joined by the enigmatic African and African diaspora art forces of Luke Atwood Abiol, Kenneth Aidoo, Tobi Balogun, Akeelah Bertram, Esiri Erheriene-Essi, Megan Gabrielle Harris, Aaron Kudi, Nokukhanya Langa, Gerald Lovell, Jahi Quasim Reeberg, Dion Rosina, Taylor Simmons and Marcel Van den Berg, Herrera’s artworks seek to open a dialogue about these critical topics. 

Through the lens of a Pan-African community often disregarded in the conversation of technology and its rapid development, this pack of American, Schengen Area and British artists find a way to rise against the odds and reenact an important message. With the use of multimedia art, collages, sounds and one’s wildest imagination, the historical Loods 6 building at the edge of Amsterdam’s waters is brought to life again.

“This exhibition is a powerful opportunity to reimagine the positionality of the African diaspora in the surveillance apparatus,” Wes Mapes said. “Through PANAFTICON, we invite audiences to engage with urgent and relevant questions about surveillance, pushing boundaries and inspiring dialogue.”

On a cloudy Friday morning between two computer screens, we talked with one of Mapes’ fellow exhibitors and artists, Berto Herrera, about his personal journey towards this very moment. Much like the concept implies, Herrera is a Nünberg, Germany-based artist who deeply occupies himself with the topics of power, identity and cultural intersections in Western societies. 

Laurenène South (LS): Please tell us about yourself. 

Berto Herrera BH: I’m a multi-disciplinary artist. I’m originally from Texas in the U.S., and I live in Nünberg, Germany. I have a very speckled history as far as how I came to the arts. I was a former member of the U.S. Air Force where I worked at ICBM, which is the warheads. I got my way into arts, formally through Parsons School of Design and everything else. So a long history, but here I stand [laugh]. 

LS: And what brought you to Germany specifically?

BH: I used to work for Adidas in Portland, Oregon. So, from L.A., I moved to Portland, Oregon, where I was just doing more or less freelancing, designing and stuff like that. And then, from there, I got in-house for a few years with that. When the opportunity arose, I was able to transfer to Germany to start this new business move. Between two to three years ago, I quit Adidas to focus solely on my personal craft. 

LS: How does your creative work sit down with the subject of surveillance, power and control? 

BH: When I was in Adidas here in Germany, and I was doing work, a lot of it was more or less, I think, cheating my surroundings. I was invited to these meetings and designed these things, just working in the absurdity of a multi-national corporation. When I left corporate, I really started thinking about the body of work and the work I was doing while I was there. For me, it was interesting and also difficult struggling with my former identity. When you look at America, we tend to identify with our work. So, the way I identify myself has also played a role in my work decisions. 

I was just trying to understand what my work is really about. Why am I gravitating towards certain things? Why does this happen to have a certain aesthetic? And also, what am I trying to even say? I don’t know who I am. I’ve done 15 years of corporate work, more or less, extracting the best out of you for gain. Who are you? And for me, it was a long journey. It took me two different years to just really experiment with things. 

And then, also processing my childhood and things that I saw in my childhood. Looking back, the family environment I was in, my dad was in the Marines, and I remember just growing up around a lot of military embellishments, how he would display his uniform and the little tags. Really, just processing my surroundings throughout my childhood. When you think of my time in corporate and military background, my work is really a blend of the two. 

LS: It is safe to say that the themes you tackle are quite unique and have a distinctive approach to artistry as a whole. In your opinion, is your work a political commentary about societal norms?

BH: In a lot of interviews in the past, I’ve said no. I tried to remove myself from the concept of being political. The more I sit and think about it, I think there is a level that makes my work political. Just us existing, immigrating, that is all political. So why not? For me, it’s my work, and so why not just say it? I think now, with hindsight, examining where my current work is going, there are definitely levels of politicization. Either a critic or process.

LS: Do you have these thoughts in the back of your mind during your creative process, or does the subject matter end up being something you subconsciously convey?

BH: I read a lot of articles, so a lot of these topics are stored in my head. It’s very important to me because I think a lot of us don’t know how the system works. It has become so abstract, and the culture moves so fast that what happened last week is different from what happened this week. To be able to have the conversation whether you’re right, left or center, no matter your political affiliation. 

What does matter is these systems control and govern us, and we should criticize them. We should examine them; we should have the discourse. I believe there is a breakdown of democracy currently, specifically in Western society. And the breakdown of democracy is currently tied to the lack of discourse, the separation of people, living in certain bubbles and the justification of that. Without that being challenged, that is the basis and foundation of civics. For me, it’s very important that these works create that discourse. Whether you like me or not, what I’m looking for is, are we having a conversation?  

LS: Definitely an important question to ask. This would bring us to PANAFTICON, a group exhibition you’re a part of occurring between Jan. 31 and Feb. 16, 2025. Before I ask about this, what does PANAFTICON mean to you?

BH: Being part of the African diaspora, I’m fortunate. I am first focused on the topic of surveillance and control. I firmly believe that this is the thing we should first examine because this does not just affect Black and Brown people; it affects everybody. Of course, if you look at statistics, it’s going to be disproportionate, right? So, for me, at least, we need to have a conversation. 

Pan-Africanism, to me, is not just about Blackness in our everyday lives. Yes, the foundation is, but I think there needs to be a contemporary ideology of it. It is so rooted in the past and what was happening in the past, and it needs to be brought to the future. And if we can’t have that discussion and include other people—not just this one-sided vision like no, we are all suffering as a minority—we should all come together. We as natives and we as a minority people.  

LS: That was very nicely put. How did you establish the first interaction with Wes Mapes?

BH: As you know, Wes Mapes curated the show. It was a good dialogue because we started as he had this idea and I was like, “oh cool!” So, we were kicking back and forth different articles and different pieces of literature. Also, I was like, “Have you thought about this? Have you heard about that?” We were always going back and forth. 

Especially now, we have the German election coming up, and that’s going to be crazy. We had the U.S. election; we obviously know how that turned out. So this topic of surveillance especially, also looking at censorship and stuff like that, these are hot topics currently. I think it was in Dallas or somewhere in Texas, where an artist had an exhibition and people were trying to censor her work. These topics are definitely hot right now within the art space but also in the news. So, he was talking about one thing, and I was talking about another, and so, we took some time for us to kind of step back, and he processed all the literature and articles. And he was like, “OK, it’s about this,” and I was like, “Yeah, it is about this.” I think the rest is history. 

It’s a really important show that sheds light on this topic. I think within the African diaspora, we don’t really talk about this topic too much. There are certain artists that do for sure, but on a larger scale, it’s not in the public eye. 

LS: Loods 6, which housed a hundred artists over the years and also where the exhibition is taking place, is also a historical building in Amsterdam. What can you tell us about the location?

So, Wes, because he is a curator, he found all of the things, but for me, what I find super interesting is the fact that it was used by the Royal Dutch Navy for the transporting of goods, people and whatever, right? For me, that’s super interesting given my military background and also, directly given the past with the Dutch [laugh], these “trading” companies and everything else. I think that it is super important that the show is there, knowingly or unannounced on how we got the space and how Wes got the space, I think it creates a very deep conversation about this specific topic. And critiquing the colonial powers that created these systems. 

LS: You already spoke of your stance in terms of Pan-Africanism. How important would you say the voices of the African diaspora are in the world of modern contemporary art? 

BH: Our living experience is very different. Seeing how my friends get treated in Germany versus how I get treated or how I get stopped, but they don’t get stopped. Through surveillance, they’d say oh, we saw you there, etc. … And I think there needs to be more People of Color in these spaces having these kinds of discussions because I’m not the only one. We need to be more active, vigilant, and dare I say, militant on how we go about this topic. 

LS: As a final question, what do you want art enthusiasts and attendees of the exhibition to take away from this experience?

BH: Specifically on my works, when people see my work, and this is the intent that Wes wanted to do, is the question, right? The parts of my work I have at Wes’ show are very subtle, but it urges one to ask questions deeper than the meaning. For me, it’s not just about seeing someone’s work but the relationship of these works together and the historical context of this space. Also, the visuals in that space and environment and how they shape and mold when you walk through. How does it affect them upon the entrance and exit? It’s very much about how they feel when they enter and how they feel when they leave. Most importantly, what types of questions did they ask themselves?

KEYWORDS

PANAFTICON, Berto Herrera, Wes Mapes, African diaspora art, Surveillance art, Contemporary art, Loods 6, Amsterdam art exhibition, Art and technology, Censorship in art, Government control, Pan-Africanism, Multimedia art, Art exhibition review, Art interview, Cultural identity in art, Political commentary in art, Dutch colonial history, Royal Dutch Navy, Art and politics, Art in Amsterdam, Black artists, Art and identity, Art and democracy, Art and censorship, Art and colonial history, Amsterdam, Art galleries in Amsterdam, Luke Atwood Abiol, Kenneth Aidoo, Tobi Balogun, Akeelah Bertram, Esiri Erheriene-Essi, Megan Gabrielle Harris, Aaron Kudi, Nokukhanya Langa, Gerald Lovell, Jahi Quasim Reeberg, Dion Rosina, Taylor Simmons, Marcel Van den Berg, surveillance, power, control, identity, cultural intersections, social justice, Multimedia art, Collage art, Sound art