KUNSTASYL – daHEIM [at home]

The participatory art and research project was founded in 2015 by artist Barbara Caveng and developed in a team with architect Aymen Montasser, visual artist Therry Kornath, photographer and journalist Till Rimmele and Dachil Sado, who studied visual arts in Berlin from 2017-22. In the first years of KUNSTASYL until 2018, the development of artistic concepts and strategies to influence social power relations, questions of representation and participation formed the focus of the collaboration between residents and humans who came to Germany through forced migration.

KUNSTASYL at a shelter at Staakener Straße Spandau, 2015 ©Till Rimmele
‘Will happiness finds me?’ – Utopia Garden ©barbara caveng

A residential centre for those seeking asylum in Berlin-Spandau was the starting point for a collaborative project development with 120 people from 21 nations from 2015-17. We, a team of professionals from different disciplines, artists and creative minds, shared the space with humsn beings who had to flee or had decided to leave their country of origin.

gallery at the KUNSTASYL-trailor with memorabilisof the residents ©Till Rimmele
Ruschka und Zineta©Till Rimmele

To this day, we stand up for the rights of every human being to move, live, work, love and participate in society freely and according to his:her own will.

daHEIM : glances into fugitive lives, MEK Museum Europäischer Kulturen, Berlin 2016©Uta Franz
KUNSTASYLtours, Fernreisen Neukölln, 2015
KUNSTASYLtours, long-distance journey Neukölln, Kunstfestival 48Stunden Neukölln | 2015©Till Rimmele

These concerns are articulated in the KUNSTASYL Charta of human rights, which was created in 2017 on the exhibition platform of daHEIM: Glances into Fugitive Lives in collaboration with the MEK, Berlin, on the occasion of the performance project DIE KÖNIGE. Thirty-one people articulated shared values in thirty-one paragraphs: Article 1, Everyone has the right to be called a human being, Article 31, Everyone has the right to be happy.

DIE KÖNIGE | UTC- 7 hours parallel performances | Lamin E. Sanneh, Omar Alshaer_Jyas Sari | ©Andrea_Milde
Floor installation as part of the exhibit daHeim: glances into fugitiv lives, MEK, Berlin | 2016/17 ©unbekannt

Era I, “daHeim”, ended in 2018. KUNSTASYL, founded as an initiative, now has the legal form of a non-profit association under whose aegis we realise participatory projects at the intersections of art/ politics/ society. Our aesthetic, political and social practice takes place in social space.

The story(s) of ‘daHEIM’ are documented in the digital KUNSTASYL archive. It offers insights and perspectives into a complex art project, with personal testimonies and documents, biographical fragments, thoughts and reflections on life experiences – polyphonically narrated and considered from different perspectives of the participants. The archive contains as many truths as there are voices.

In the archive, actions, performances, long-distance journeys, exhibitions, interventions can be traced that have taken place in various cooperations and collaborations between KUNSTASYL, residents and institutions on a local, municipal, national and international level. The archive invites you to browse.

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