Auszeichnung
künstlerischer Projekträume
und -initiativen

ABA

Air Berlin Alexanderplatz

2009
Haus der Statistik, Haus D
Otto-Braun-Straße
70–72
Berlin
10178

Funken zu Flammen, 10 Jahre ABA, 2020

Lisette Smits, The Applicant, The Embassy of the Netherlands, 2016

The art scene, spaces, artists, and initiators in the past ten years (being a continuum of what has gone before) in a nutshell, can be seen to have changed from individual authorships to more collective ones. They act in opposition to the anonymized corporate structures, in particular the giant housing conglomerates (these destructive collective edifices that have the same legal rights as a sentient individual human being) that threaten to dissemble the unique fabric of the city of Berlin that provided a fertile ground in which these initiatives could rise, connect, and thrive. So the project room scene provides a positive counter-weight to these destructive development processes as a living, breathing, collaborative, and inclusive network. I hope that this fabulous project room network does not drown in the indifference of mainstream political thinking in the city of Berlin.We are interested in reaching audiences that are NOT part of the art world.The engagement and support from the Network has been vitally important to our growth and sustainability, and also our learning and understanding of the ­wider Berlin art scene beyond our micro-communities. For one thing, we have learned so much about the plurality of spaces and creative ­discourses in Berlin. But the open discussion that the Network allows with the Berlin Senate and one another has been really important in order to understand our needs as unique nodes in the artistic landscape of Berlin, and creative mutual goals for the sustainability and vitality of the community as a whole.