Ceremonial Inauguration of the Queer Artwork and Monument FOR CAPRI AND ROXI

It is a special moment for Hamburg – and for the queer history of this city: the artwork and monument FOR CAPRI AND ROXI will be inaugurated at Enckeplatz. We cordially invite you to celebrate this historic moment with us.What seems self-evident today – queer people claiming their place in public space – was not always a matter of course in Hamburg. In 1960, the Hamburg-Mitte district office issued a so-called dancing ban: men were no longer allowed to dance with each other in several dance halls. Among others, Capri and Roxi, after whom the artwork is named, were affected. The ban was a Hamburg peculiarity and is exemplary of the state and societal repression that queer people faced in post-war Germany.More than six decades later, this history is given a visible place in Hamburg's urban space. With the artwork by Franziska Opel and Hannah Rath, the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg commemorates past injustices and publicly confronts a part of its own history. A chapter of exclusion becomes a place of remembrance, visibility, and confident queer life.The inauguration is also intended to be a celebration for the community – with speeches, encounters, and a surprise contribution from the community.