THE MIGRATION OF SPACES

 

 

Migration and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
An Art Project by Stefanie Bürkle

 

 

Migration is not only the movement of people; it’s also the movement of spaces. The rural and urban spaces migrants bring with them form the basis of new spaces and places, which in turn are shaped as residents of one space seek to differentiate themselves from those of another. Berlin not only contains many such “migrated” spaces; the city itself is dynamic, filled with a variety of changing environments. The speed of these movements and transformations has increased since the fall of the Berlin Wall. 
How have migrant groups perceived the dual territorial boundaries of their neighbourhoods, on the one hand, and the Wall, on the other? How do these groups move in the politically unified, but spatially divided, city? The interdisciplinary art project “Migration of Spaces” sheds light on the spaces Berlin’s migrants' import and produce anew. In particular, we investigate the tensions of placemaking between reconstruction, which tends to reinvent the city, and the spaces of migration, which tend to conserve the past.

“The Migration of Spaces” is run by an interdisciplinary team of artists and social scientists working with a variety of media. 
 

The Placemaking project is made possible by Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Scheringstiftung

and was shown at the group exhibition BERLIN 89/09 - KUNST ZWISCHEN SPURENSUCHE UND UTOPIE at the Berlinische Galerie there also were guerrilla screenings in Kreuzberg, Lichtenberg, Marzahn, and Wedding, in which video and interview clips about migrant spaces returned to their source. The full-length video was also shown at the HAU2