The Art of Community
Artistic Meeting Format Talks & Workshops Social/Urban Movements
The Alliance of International Production Houses has not only been specialising on the international performing arts for the last ten years but also on local artistic strategy. In urban neighbourhoods, on-site networks and in collaboration with self-empowering communities, a diverse and viral communal art emerges. At The Claiming Common Spaces festival in Düsseldorf, the Alliance members and their partners invite the audience to an encounter:
Migrantpolitan on the Kampnagel building in Hamburg is an action space wherein diasporic and local artists enter an exchange process, develop transcultural strategies together and try out new aesthetic practices.
The Migrantpolitan initiative Hools of Fashion opens a Secret Shop at the FFT Foyer: Street couture with political aspirations and a whiff of anarchy.
The women of the Berlin-Kreuzberg-based Arabian Roundtable present their film Durch unsere Augen (Through our eyes). In it, they narrate their own stories – as authors, directors, and makers of imagery and sound.
During the Konrad-Lunch on the FFT forecourt, we initiate an exchange with the central figures of the WerkStadt neighbourhood lunch from Essen-Katernberg.
At Dance like nobody’s watching – remixed at the tanzhaus Foyer, blind and visually impaired artists invite their audiences to communal dancing.
A cozy time out with neighbourly encounters and cooperative talks. That is the idea of the neighbourhood lunch, as it takes place at Essen-Katernberg’s WerkStadt. The participants carry the lunch’s spirit onto the KAP1 Forecourt where the FFT invites the audience to lunch at irregular intervals. Together, at noon, we invite you with the opportunity of meeting more of the quarter’s residents and actors, to engage in conversation about commonalities and challenges. You can get acquainted with the concept of the Arbeitskreis Kunst und Soziales (Art and Social Circle) in Essen-Katernberg.
“Hools of Fashion” is a fashion collective that emerged from the Migrantpolitan community at Kampnagel in Hamburg. The underground label operates at the intersection of street couture, community activism, and “glampowerment”. In the Secret Shop, you can shop for the Hools’ statement pieces or have your own items customised. Are you DIY fashionistas yourselves? Then bring your work along and be inspired!
Migrantpolitan on the Kampnagel building in Hamburg is an action space wherein diasporic and local artists enter an exchange process, develop transcultural strategies together and try out new aesthetic practices. This microcosm is a laboratory for solidary collaboration in which new ideas emerge, cultural self-determination has its firm place, and wherein a whiff of anarchy is part of the inventory.
A group of Kreuzberg women provides insights into their day-to-day lives in the heart of Berlin. Together with filmmaker Therese Koppe, they were acquainted with filmmaking techniques. In “Durch unsere Augen”, they tell their own stories – as auteurs, directors, and makers of imagery and sound. For many years, there has been a close connection between the women of the Arabian Roundtable at Kreuzberg’s Mehringplatz and HAU Hebbel am Ufer. It was there that the film premiered in 2024. After the screening, we will engage in conversation with the makers.
German and Arabic with German subtitles
Concept and Idea Film: Therese Koppe, Wafaa Khattab
Artistic Direction: Therese Koppe
By and Featuring: Asmaa Abu Liel, Ranja Kayed, Maysa El-Fares, Ruba Abdelfatah, Yamama El-Khaled, Najwa Koussa, Sabah El-Ahmad, Nadia Abdul Al, Ahlam Abdul Al
Artistic Assistance and Documentation: Luis Miguel Benavides and Nina Szkolka (tesserae)
Dramaturgy: Stella Konstantinou
Process Support and Networking: Wafaa Khattab (Quartiersmanagement Mehringplatz), Lea Hartung (Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin), and Stella Konstantinou (HAU to connect) Film Music: Nabil Arbaain
Kulturförderung (Cultural Funding) Berlin-Neukölln and Berlin Mondiale
For this remixed edition, the Community joined forces with three artists working across DJ-ing and MC-ing in a two-day laboratory in August to explore how a dance floor can be created without taking sighted culture as its starting point. The hosting expertise of MCs – Masters of Ceremonies who accompany, guide and shape the atmosphere of a party through language – meets the Community of Reception’s artistic practice in creative audio description for dance. Drawing on the wishes, experiences and modes of perception of the blind and visually impaired artists, the laboratory developed new ideas for what a dance floor – and its vibe – can be.
Now the experiment continues with you. In Dance like nobody’s watching – remixed, the Community of Reception and the three MCs open up their experimental space and invite you to experience a new kind of party together. The ideas, techniques and playful discoveries developed in the laboratory move onto the dance floor – and you are invited to bring them to life with your own moves.
Come along. Dance. Enjoy. On your own terms.
Created by and featuring the Laboratory for Creative Audio Description – Community of Reception by Fia/Sophia Neises and Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, together with Mieze McCripple, Soraya Nsingi and ZANIAH (Sahra Abbassi).
cast
Hools of Fashion (Hamburg)
Durch unsere Augen (Berlin)
Konrad-Lunch (Düsseldorf)
WerkStadt (Essen)
Labor für kreative Audiodeskription (Laboratory for Creative Audio Description) – Community of Reception by Fia/Sophia Neises and Zwoisy Mears-Clarke (Düsseldorf)
credits
As part of the Alliance of International Production Houses, it receives grants from funds provided by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.