PROGRAMME
Thursday, May 19
Doors 16:00, Opening 18:00 / HAU1
Guests: Garip Bali (co-founder of the association ADA, Allmende – Haus alternativer Migrationspolitik), Bafta Sarbo (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland Bund e. V.), Newroz Duman (Initiative 19 February Hanau, Youth without Borders) et al., Beate Klarsfeld (German-French journalist and activist) and Serge Klarsfeld (Fils et Filles de Déportés Juifs de France, Militants de la Mémoire) with musical contributions by Turgay Ulu
Hosts: Sabine Hess (Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe), Vincent Bababoutilabo (Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe)
Languages: German, English
With the slogan “Assembling, archiving and activating anti-racist struggles”, we welcome representatives of different movements and generations to the stage to collectively pick up the threads of anti-racist history, which we aim to expand over the three days of the assembly. Vincent Bababoutilabo and Sabine Hess from the project “Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe” will talk about the winding paths of antiracist movements, unexpected formations of solidarity, defeats and the importance of remembering
20:00 / HAU1
PANEL I: Politics of Remembrance
Guests: Peggy Piesche, Tahir Della (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland Bund e. V.), Noa Ha (weißensee kunsthochschule berlin), Hannah Peaceman (University of Jena)
Host: Natalie Bayer (FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum)
Languages: German, English
Guests will discuss the politics of remembering protest and resistance against racist conditions as well as social change: How can the experiences, struggles and demands of people who have experienced racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination gain more visibility? What basic (political) conditions are needed for self-empowered and dignified commemoration of racist violence and exclusion? What infrastructures for processing and archiving the struggles against racism and for equal opportunity need to be created?
Friday, May 20
10:00–11:00 / HAU1
Keynote I: “Persons conspicuous as Jews”: My path from East to West Berlin and beyond the wall
Guests: Cathy Gelbin (School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester)
Host: Silke Helmerdig (photographer)
Languages: German, English
The lecture traces Cathy Gelbin’s German-American-Jewish path, from misfit East Berlin youth and young adult to a new life in 1980s West Berlin, where she was plunged into heated lesbian-feminist debates regarding women, Jews and the legacies of National Socialism. From there, she took her ultimate departure from Germany after briefly returning to reprise these debates during the 1990s. Following on from the 1970s feminist slogan that “the personal is political”, the lecture seeks to contextualize this path within past and present activist and academic debates regarding gendered, sexualized and Jewish difference and belonging across the huge historical changes that occurred during these times.
Workshop Phase I
11:30–13:30 / HAU3
Trikont DDR I
Guests: Angelika Levi (filmmaker, video artist), Lydia Lierke (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation), Paulino Miguel, Razak Minhel and Heike Kanter (Multikulturelles Zentrum Dessau e. V.), Trong Do Duc (Unteilbar)
Host: Vincent Bababoutilabo (Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe)
Language: German
While the anti-racist struggles in the USA and South Africa achieved tremendous popularity in East Germany, the “roots of racism and fascism” in the workers' and peasants' state were purported to have been overcome. People from the Global South who immigrated to the GDR often saw things differently. They went on strike for better working conditions, fought against deportations, broke out of shelters and repeatedly transgressed the borders of the real-socialist regime of control.
“Trikont DDR I” and “Trikont DDR II” are two consecutive workshops.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
11:30–13:30 / HAU3
I can hear you – Defending voices I
Host: Sonja Collison (Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe)
Language: Deutsch
The chronicles of activist movements that oppose racial profiling in everyday life and its consequences are partly a reflection of decades of struggle. Their pursuit of visibility and justice within the structural power relations of this country represent a large part of the history of resistance to racism. Knowledge and voices from such movements are regularly sidelined from the general public and remain unheard. The aim of this workshop is to process these stories and transform them into a kind of living, growing archive.
Since 1990, almost 200 people have died in police custody. Every day, people become victims of racist, right-wing extremist or discriminatory violence, often receiving no protection. On the contrary, they are categorised, criminalised and marginalised while fighting for their survival.
In this workshop, we want to bring people together who are engaged against structural violence from the perspective of struggles, strengthen them and collectively explore what it takes to raise public awareness on the importance of efforts against these realities.
“I can hear you – Defending Voices I” and “I can hear you – Defending Voices II” are two consecutive workshops.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
11:30–13:30 / HAU3
Women in exile: Between Resistance and Affects
Guest: Katharina Eitner (Arde project)
Hosts: Daniellis Hernandez, Elizabeth Ngari (Women in Exile's archive team)
Languages: English, German, Farsi
Since last year, Women in Exile has been working to create an archive that gathers, catalogues and shares the documents generated in its 20 years of opposing discrimination and supporting the rights of refugee women in Berlin and Brandenburg. But what kind of archive do we want to build? We do not want a place to preserve the past but to share it. A space to experiment with new ways and forms of categorising the present and the use of these documents. With this in mind, the workshop will be directed to activate discursive and creative ways of approaching photographic documents.
We invite participants to bring their printed photographic documents to the workshop to work with them.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
Workshop Phase II
14:00–17:30 / HAU3
Fleeting Resonances / Flüchtige Resonanzen
Guests: Beate Klarsfeld (German-French journalist and activist), Serge Klarsfeld (Fils et Filles de Déportés Juifs de France, Militants de la Mémoire), Benjamin Baader (Professor of European History, University of Manitoba) (online from Canada), Cathy Gelbin (Professor of Film and German Studies, University of Manchester), Jessica Jacoby (online), Silke Helmerdig (photographer), Elisa Klapheck (rabbi of the liberal synagogue community “Egalitarian Minyan” in the Jewish Community in Frankfurt am Main and professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Paderborn), Cindy Milstein (diasporic queer Jewish anarchist and organizer, author and editor ) (online from USA), Christina Feist (joint plaintiff in the Halle trial, ELES Research Fellow and doctoral student at the Universities of Potsdam and Paris - Sorbonne), Nui*Arendt (gender-queer transformative justice), Miriam Yosef (freelance artist, writer and education facilitator), Ina Holev (writer, education facilitator), Lea Wohl von Haselberg (film scholar), Esther Dischereit (writer, editor of “Hab keine Angst, erzählt alles!”)
Moderation: Yara Haskiel (Video artist and researcher, PhD candidate in the Visual Culture Department, Goldsmiths, London), Angelika Levi (film-maker) and Alisa Limorenko (political activist and student of cultural anthropology and gender studies at the University of Göttingen) from the project “Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe”
Languages: German, English
“Fleeting Resonances” describes the attempt to assemble a temporary, heterogeneous space as an archive of living effects of embodied Jewish-situated worlds of experience in a workshop. We will search for traces of past resonances and their histories and lived experiences as well as contemporary political and artistic interventions. In doing so, we relate the reproductive mechanisms of micro- and macropolitical amnesias to plural, hybrid and ambivalent Jewish lived realities in Germany. This workshop will enable an open platform to discuss resistant practices of networked solidarity and to activate them across generations.
We plead for poetries of unrest in the interstices of articulation processes, for leaving comfort zones, for example, where remembrance and mourning of the Holocaust are performed choreographically with a German instruction manual, while the Jewish person is frozen as an imaginary subject to be grieved in German society. From this place echoes the representative models of memory, whose forms of subjectivation are rarely questioned over generations. We understand memory and mourning are multi-directional and part of an important anti-racist practice.
Jewish life in Germany has long been (post-)migrant, liberal and egalitarian. And precisely for this reason, “Jewishness” remains a provocation for the majority society in its plurality of many facets and diverse histories. Our approach is: there is no singular category of “Jewish” but rather fluid and multiple singularities in interdependence and resonance between visible (loud) and invisible (quiet) voices, as well as their fleeting and persistent spaces of echo.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
15:00–17:00 /HAU3
I can hear you – Defending voices II
Host: Sonja Collison (Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe)
Language: German
The chronicles of activist movements that oppose racial profiling in everyday life and its consequences are partly a reflection of decades of struggle. Their pursuit of visibility and justice within the structural power relations of this country represent a large part of the history of resistance to racism. Knowledge and voices from such movements are regularly sidelined from the general public and remain unheard. The aim of this workshop is to process these stories and transform them into a kind of living, growing archive.
Since 1990, almost 200 people have died in police custody. Every day, people become victims of racist, right-wing extremist or discriminatory violence, often receiving no protection. On the contrary, they are categorised, criminalised and marginalised while fighting for their survival.
In this workshop, we want to bring people together who are engaged against structural violence from the perspective of struggles, strengthen them and collectively explore what it takes to raise public awareness on the importance of efforts against these realities.
“I can hear you – Defending Voices I” and “I can hear you – Defending Voices II” are two consecutive workshops.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
15:00–17:00 / HAU3
You can’t evict the movement
Guests: Biyanki Duli, Turgay Ulu (O-Platz)
Host: Napuli Paul Langa (O-Platz)
Languages: German, English, Arabic
The refugees’ movement can’t be evicted, because the problems it addresses are not solved yet. This workshop will discuss ten years of refugee struggle in Germany. Activists will reflect on the experiences refugees have had in Würzburg and Oranienplatz when the refugees demanded changes in their treatment by the German state. What we are interested in: What happened? Why did refugees raise their voice? What was the German reaction? From politics, media, civil society? What role did the German Left play? There have been supporting structures. Were they helpful? Was there conflict between the supporters and the refugees? What were the results? What could be changed? What remains the same? Why is the movement less active now compared to 2012-14? What can be learned for future refugee struggles and political activism in general?
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
15:00–17:00 / HAU3
Claiming History: Activism through digital Video Archiving
Guests: Jacob Geuder (urban sociologist), Anna Baum (labour researcher and videographer), Clancey Cornell (memory worker, mental health professional, advocate for the arts), Özge Celikaslan (co-founder of bak.ma)
Host: Sirin Fulya Erensoy (Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg)
Language: English
Telling our own stories through images, recordings and videos has never been easier. Anyone with a smartphone is now able to share their account of events and counter mainstream media narratives, which too often silence the voices that challenge its ideological positioning. In a fast-paced digital world, a video shared on Twitter might be seen in a fleeting moment. As rapidly as it appeared, the same video may disappear into the internet's bottomless pit of information. This opens questions for organisers, observers and academics: How can we collect these recorded moments of oppression and resistance, provide them with context and an identity, and use them as a resource for organizing, activism, research and reflection? To answer this question, this workshop will gather activists engaged in collecting, archiving and disseminating digital media to discuss how these can be used to support popular struggles around the world and help create a counter-history that empowers its subjects in the process.
This panel is organized as part of the H2020 MSCA-IF project, VIDEOACT. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 101025524.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
18:00–19:30 / HAU1
PANEL II: Activating Archives
Guests: Timothy Tasch (Documentation Centre and Museum on Migration in Germany e. V., DOMiD), Women in Exile, Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez (Institute for Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main), Pinar Tuzcu (Institute for Sociology, University of Kassel), Sarah Clément (former member of Generiques), Nathaniel Moore (Freedom Archive, online from USA)
Host: Aurora Rodonò (Cultural Worker/Lecturer, Diversity Manager (RJM, Cologne))
Languages: German, English
Archiving the history(s) of movements and writing counter-narratives is a practice that has played a role in various struggles in the politics of memory and politics at large. This panel will discuss the politics of memory and archiving by looking at the struggles to document the struggles of the Black Civil Rights Movement in the USA and the creation of archival structures to make visible and historicise the history of migration and resistance in Germany and France.
20:00 / HAU1
Lecture Performance & Konzert Shevek Iyapo & Apsilon
Saturday, May 21
10:00–11:00 / HAU1
Keynote II: Which Antiracism? Whose Critique of Racism? What do we know about Racism or: Do we need a “Critical Theory of Race” in Germany?
Guests: Mark Terkessidis (freelance writer)
Languages: German, English
The critique or the fight against racism depends significantly on what is actually understood by racism. In recent years, however, conceptions of racism have diverged to some extent, without any discussion of these differences. Currently very dominant is a version that refers to “critical whiteness” and “critical race theory” from the USA, is historically oriented towards colonialism and uses the categories “white” and black as a basis. The use of this concept guarantees international connectivity, but at the same time makes the specificity of the German context disappear. The colonial history of the German Empire’s continental expansion, the history of forced labour and migration, and the experiences of marginalized persons of European origin have no place in it. The question is whether and how solidarity can be organized in this situation.
11:15–12:00 / HAU1
Performance: Monther Tongues by Adi Liraz
In this performance, Adi Liraz analyses her relationship with her maternal ancestors and the concept of mother tongue/mother's milk and its function as a means of transmitting knowledge. By exploring the different aspects of mother tongue(s), she creates a representation of the multiplicity of affiliations and the erasure and revival of knowledge and (post-)memory, linked to loss and trauma, in a critical perspective on the meanings of Jewish identities in contrast to national structures and ideas.
10:00–11:30
Walking tour: Sites of migrant organising in Kreuzberg with Garip Bali
Language: German
As a contemporary witness, Garip Bali will guide the participants to places of migrant organizing. Since the tour time is limited, only a part of the history of the organization of migrants from Turkey in Kreuzberg will be presented. The tour starts near Hermannplatz and ends at Kottbusser Tor. On the way on foot, several stops will tell about the history, background and activities of former associations, places of action and much more. A brochure documenting the tour, which was first carried out in 2011 by the association Allmende on the occasion of 50 years of migration from Turkey, can be purchased for a donation.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point: Kottbusser Damm 25/26, 10967 Berlin
Workshop Phase III
13:00–15:00 / HAU3
Redlining in Kreuzberg. Of Immigration Barriers and Borders: An Activation
Guests: Christos Zisis (UH, FH Kiel), Çağan Varol (political scientist), Maria Alexopoulou (Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, TU Berlin), Duygu Gürsel (HU), Tobias Mulot (historian), Andrea and Matei Bellu, Noa Ha (DeZIM-Institut, Counselling for Migration), Kourabas, Veronika (University of Bielefeld), Bafta Sarbo (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland Bund e. V.) et al.
Host: Vassilis Tsianos (Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe)
Language: German
Already at the beginning of the 1970s and in relation to the “Ausländerbeschäftigung” (“employment of foreigners”), the topic of “Überlastung der Städte” (“urban congestion”) was discussed with alarm. In a way, it was the birth of the Federal Republic's ghetto discourse and a new racial rule. “Die Türken kommen – rette sich, wer kann“ (“The Turks are coming – save yourself“) was the big cover story of Der Spiegel, focusing on a single group of migrants. The term “Türkenghetto” (“Turkish ghetto”) soon became part of the vocabulary of city councillors and politicians as a matter of course. What Der Spiegel apparently did not know at the time was a planning paper by the Berlin Senate Chancellery. According to the report, the districts of Kreuzberg and Wedding in particular already had very high proportions of foreign residents in 1971. In the redevelopment area of Kreuzberg, it was 35%. In an alarmist tone, the authors warned: “In order to prevent the imminent collapse of the infrastructure of these districts if the agglomeration continues unchecked and the associated danger to the foreign and German population as well as to general security, a reduction of the agglomeration, or at least a limited stop to immigration, is absolutely necessary.” The Berlin proposal to stop immigration via the aliens law seems like it was an early step towards the regulation that came into force nationwide in 1974. Although the redlining and barring policies soon had to be abandoned, the signature of these racist territorial policies has continued through today. For example, in the 1990s, the city of Frankfurt am Main applied the following quota key to new housing developments: 30 percent foreigners, ten per cent resettlers, 15 percent social welfare recipients, 25 percent neighbourhood residents, 20 percent other persons. Similar rules are used in other large cities such as Berlin, Cologne and Munich. The barely acknowledged exclusion of Sinti and Jenische in post-war local politics is certainly part of it. However, this distributional and selective composition model has an uncanny ambivalence: on the one hand, so far it has been partly responsible for the fact that social segregation is much less pronounced in the Federal Republic than in other countries; on the other hand, it harks back to and stabilises racist processes of “othering” in the housing policy government of migration and discrepancy in the city. Even today, one can prove the existence of “migrant barriers” regarding housing policy. In the exception clause of the Allgemeinen Gleichbehandlungsgesetzes (“General Equal Treatment Act”), which was included in the law under pressure from the housing market lobby, the anti-discriminatory effect in the area of the private housing market is decisively limited. The clause literally allows discrimination according to ethnic difference in the rental of housing in the name of socially balanced occupancy. Dominant cultural productions of space by means of redlining or move-in closures are spatial representations of “othering” that feed into urban panics. Based on this, and in the light of critical race theory and David Theo Goldberg's concept of “racial urban”, this workshop will explore which resistances and possibilities for action have existed in order to deal with redlining and racial profiling as a spatial, institutional and personal problem.
Currently all places for this workshop are occupied / waiting list via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
13:00–15:00 / HAU3
Trikont DDR II
Guests: Angelika Levi (filmmaker, video artist), Lydia Lierke (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation), Paulino Miguel, Razak Minhel and Heike Kanter (Multikulturelles Zentrum Dessau e. V.), Trong Do Duc (Unteilbar)
Host: Vincent Bababoutilabo(Ver/sammeln antirassistischer Kämpfe)
Language: German
While the anti-racist struggles in the USA and South Africa achieved tremendous popularity in East Germany, the “roots of racism and fascism” in the workers' and peasants' state were purported to have been overcome. People from the Global South who immigrated to the GDR often saw things differently. They went on strike for better working conditions, fought against deportations, broke out of shelters and repeatedly transgressed the borders of the real-socialist regime of control.
“Trikont DDR I” and “Trikont DDR II” are two consecutive workshops.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
13:00–15:00 / HAU3
Archiving as an Activist Practice: Exchanging Experiences
Guests:Özge Celikaslan (co-founder and member of bak.ma), Bilge Emir (member of bak.ma)
Languages: German, English
Archiving is an activist practice. However, groups, alliances and associations often lack the time, money and technical tools to archive their own stories. Given all these limitations, many activists have set out to develop ways to archive autonomously using open-source tools. In this workshop, bak.ma, a tool based on the open source programme an.do/ra, will be presented as a digital media archive of social movements and also practically applied with specific examples. The workshop also encourages participants to exchange experiences in setting up autonomous (digital) archives and to look for networking opportunities together. Participants are asked to bring their own laptops and short video sequences, if possible, as practical and visual material.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
13:00–15:00 / HAU3
Struggles in the Politics of Memory in the Aftermath of Racist Murders and Attacks
Guests: Hasan and Sibel Leyla (parents of Can Leyla, Munich), Gamze Kubaşık (daughter of Mehmet Kubaşık, Dortmund) and Ali Şirin (Alliance “Tag der Solidarität/Kein Schlussstrich Dortmund”), Mouctar Bah (friend of Oury Jalloh, Dessau), Arshad Niazai (friend of Aman Alizada, Stade), Initiative in Memory of Ramazan Avcı (Hamburg), Esperanca Bunga (survivor of the racist attack in Lübeck in 1996, Nuremberg), other relatives and active members of memorial initiatives from various cities will speak
Host: Gürsel Yıldırım (Initiative zum Gedenken an Ramazan Avcı, Hamburg)
Language: German
Rassistische Attacken, Morde, Anschläge sind die Spitze des Eisbergs. Wer im Rahmen von Gedenkinitiativen mit Angehörigen zusammen gegen das Vergessen kämpft, wer Erinnerungsarbeit auch über die Presse und Social Media betreibt, ist gut informiert darüber, dass die staatlichen Statistiken hierzu lückenhaft, irreführend, gefälscht sind. Was staatliche Instanzen offiziell als rechte und rassistisch motivierte Tötungsdelikte angeben und bewerteten, spiegelt eher den Entlastungwunsch der staatlichen Instanzen und der Mehrheitsgesellschaft wider.
Der deutsche Staat entzieht sich chronisch der historischen Verantwortung, lässt die Familiengehörigen und Betroffenen von rassistisch motivierten Gewalttaten im Stich, geht nicht über Beruhigungspillen hinaus, ermittelt nur sehr zögerlich oder gar nicht gegen sich selbst, wenn seine Bediensteten versagen. All das hat fatale Folgen für die Angehörigen der Opfer von rassistischen Morden.
Forderungen von Angehörigen und Überlebenden nach Aufklärung, Gerechtigkeit, Opferentschädigung stoßen auf die eisige Mauer der staatlichen Instanzen und die weitgehende Ignoranz der Dominanzgesellschaft. Uns Angehörigen, Überlebenden, Gedenkinitiativen bleibt nichts anderes übrig, als über unsere Grenzen hinaus, selbst-organsiert community übergreifend weiter unsere Anliegen und Forderungen gegen das Vergessen hör- und sichtbar zu machen.
Auf dem Podium wollen wir zurückblicken auf die langjährigen Erfahrungen von Angehörigen, Überlebenden und Gedenkinitiativen im Kampf gegen das Vergessen, um würdige Erinnerungspraxen und solidarischen Perspektiven. Wir diskutieren, wie wir gemeinsam die Opfer von rassistischen Morden würdigen, die Anliegen der Angehörigen und Überlebenden stärken sowie für eine erweiterte Handlungsfähigkeit im Sinne der erinnerungspolitischen Kämpfe einstehen können.
Limited capacity / Registration requested via tickets@hebbel-am-ufer.de
Meeting point for all workshop participants: HAU3
17:00 / FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum
Opening: An Open Archive
Since 2021, we have been working with many groups and individuals who have already set out not to forget the history/s of their movements and struggles against racism and anti-Semitism, but to re-activate them for today and tomorrow.
At the FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum, the first collection of materials and knowledge can be viewed and researched in an open archive. These are fragments that will continue to grow with the support of activists and visitors. The open archive thus becomes a collective reappraisal and debate space to connect past experiences with present ones. The open archive can be found at the FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum, Adalbertstraße 96, 10999 Berlin, U1/U8 Kottbusser Tor.
