2014,

ausland

projekt archiv e. V.

2018, 2016, 2014,

2002

Lychener Straße

60

Berlin

10437

ausland-berlin.de

Ignaz Schick, Kompositionen, Ansicht Setup /Equipment, 2019, Foto: Cristina Marx / Photomusix

John Butcher, Liz Allbee, Marta Zapparoli, Konzert 2019, Foto: Cristina Marx / Photomusix

Daniela Fromberg & Stefan Roigk, Unfamiliar Home, Klanginstallation, 2018, Foto: Fromberg & Roigk

Gitarren-Ensemble, Kompositionen von J. Kudirka, J. Reidy, E. Wong, 2019, Foto: Cristina Marx / Photomusix

The Network is a fundamental organization in the artistic landscape of Berlin. Without the Network, many of the support structures that have been built in recent years simply would not exist. Unionizing has always been problematic in a sector like the art sphere where the construction of the worker has been historically based on the idea of the author, and therefore the ego. In order to achieve change, cooperative models like the Network are a must. The challenge is how to create belonging from difference.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.For many decades Berlin has developed a lively, diverse, and independent way of producing culture and counteracting government decisions, based on, local, generous, and enthusiastic, but also worried, social communities that exchanged resources and ideas within a larger political debate. The city became a “natural” shelter and fertile environment for dissidents, artists, political refugees, and immigrants with any background also due to the need to overcome a traumatic past full of human generated atrocities that are still present in people memories and behaviour.