2020,

The Watch

2020,

2016

Puschkinallee

55

Berlin

12435

thewatch-berlin.org

Transmissions, 2019, Foto: Jo Zahn

Ciarán Walsh, 2021, Foto: Ciarán Walsh

These try-outs should be understood not in abstract terms, but in the light of the current struggles with labor, housing, racism, homophobia, and anti-fascist positions. If politicians can facilitate these processes for us to work, that would be great. We would wish that the situation wouldn’t look as somber but reality is also knocking on the door of the art sphere. Can politicians regulate the price for studios and project spaces? Can they facilitate real financial support for diversity? Can they push a little bit further and understand the complex situation of art practitioners during and after the pandemic, and give some more support?Von der Kulturpolitik wünschen wir uns eine Bestätigung der Leistungen der Projektraummacher*innen durch Vernachhaltigung der Fördermöglichkeiten, gemeinsames Entwickeln neuer Tools zur Förderung und offenen Dialog auf Augenhöhe. Wir alle sind an einer lebendigen Kulturszene in Berlin interessiert; sie erzeugt Synergien und Sogwirkung. Wir alle können dazu beitragen, dass sich Lebensrealitäten von Künstler*innen und Projektmacher*innen verbessern, jede*r mit den eigenen Mitteln.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.