Lucy-Lameck-Str. 32
12049 Berlin
Germany
- Arts
- Others
Oyoun conceives, develops and implements artistic-cultural projects through decolonial, queer * feminist and migrant perspectives. Oyoun creates space for critical discussion, reflective experimentation and radical solidarity. The non-profit cultural centre sees itself as an inter- and anti-disciplinary platform for newly emerging approaches between and from artistic fields, archiving and education. At the beginning of 2020, the non-profit Kultur NeuDenken UG took over the 3500 m² cultural institution at Lucy-Lameck-Str 32, Berlin Neukölln receiving a yearly project funding of close to 1 Mio. € from the Berlin senate. Staff grew from 9 people to 27 employed team members. Oyoun carries out socio-cultural and artistic projects that highlight neurodiverse and class-critical perspectives throughout Berlin and internationally,creating an intersectional platform for excellent diasporic and international art and culture, for dialogue about locally, nationally and internationally relevant topics. Intersectionality is a crucial guiding principle and a lived practice.
At Oyoun we centre, embody and practice decolonial, queer*feminist, antiracist, class-critical and neurodiverse perspectives while countering the performative appropriation of these terms. We aim to challenge the status quo while collectively establishing research-based, on-going and antidisciplinary curatorial focuses such as Embodied Temporalities or Mightier Than a Trampled Flower. Additionally we collaborate with collectives, initiatives, activists, academics, artists, curators and more when producing new dreams, sharing knowledge or imagining a sphere in which we can move freely. Our work was born out of personal and collective need to question and dismantle oppressive systems while dedicating space and time to heal, empower and care. _Why is that? We live in a society and world built on centuries of brutal colonisation, enslavement, heteropatriarchy, violence and structural oppression. These realities and traumas have shaped us, too and we must acknowledge that these are present in all of our relationships and communities, across time, generations and spaces. We are pointing at those who maintain power through oppressive, violent, fear-based tactics. They have been belittling, erasing or silencing our existence by downplaying the effects of racism and blaming marginalised bodies for their own political, social or economic status leading to a practice of "divide and conquer". _ What happened? Since the launch of Oyoun in 2020 - a physical and utopian space in Neukölln - we have been transforming, inspiring and shaping a world in which we can feel safe in, grow and support each other. We know, we are only able to do the work because of the many honorable people who have done it before us and we hold nothing but gratitude for them. Collectively and with the contribution of hundreds of artists, scientists, activists and other community members, we have been able to create a record of excellent cultural-artistic and human-centred experiences.
Since 2020 Oyoun has had the opportunity to realise various artistic, cultural and sociocultural endeavours, some projects, some starting points for much deeper, slower and longer engagement. Some examples are: Oyoun Curators* Lab: https://oyoun.de/en/unsere-arbeit/curators-lab-2022/ Curators* Lab invites emerging queer BIPOC curators, artists, activists, thinkers, academics, and cultural practitioners to come together to better understand the significant roles of curation as a tool for social movements and knowledge-production outside of the museum and ivory-tower of academia. Through this platform, we are committed to continuing our work with the queer BIPOC community to practice co-creating, co-curating, and distributing knowledge in the community; for example, through sessions on Navigating Queer Curation and Praxis, Comradeship as Praxis workshop, TRANSCENTERED – Leaving No One Behind, and Process as Collective. Here, we invite participants with their existing skill sets to expand their practices into motions beyond the confined traditional curation. Rongin Shagor: https://oyoun.de/en/unsere-arbeit/ronginshagor/ Being a common term in Bengali, “rongin shagor রঙিন সাগর” translates to “colorful ocean” – the ocean as a holder of memories: Our bodies as holders of memories, which puts us in direct relation to bodies of water. “Will you remember to keep us afloat ?” – in turn – proposes a question at the ocean that gives and takes and creates a parallel to how and who shapes memory in our world. Who stays afloat and is remembered to stay afloat? Who will be devoured by tides and forced to be forgotten? Starting with a poem by Afro-German poet May Ayim, Oyouns new artistic intervention rongin shagor reflects on cultures of memory by exploring the reflective and generative threads of cultural formations located in the senses of the oppressed body. Retracing and reweaving these threads are the incessant tasks of cultures that faced colonialism. Collective memory emerges from language and patterns of collective memory influence language as socially and culturally shared narrative genres. The project attempts to form a constellation of remembrance by interweaving cultural responses and transnational dialogue. This multimodal space will create a rupture between voice and silence, the oral and the visual and an attempt towards the survival of the sensory cultures in the world today. UN:IMAGINABLE: https://oyoun.de/en/unsere-arbeit/unimaginable-our-histories-in-conversation/ UN:IMAGINABLE is an extraordinary theater production that emerged from the lived reality of trauma, war, exclusion and exile. The genocides of the 1990s in Rwanda and the Balkans shook the world - and are still among the bloodiest events in modern history. The reports and stories about it have lost nothing of their importance. Many people fled their home country at the time and some of them have been living in Germany ever since, which was given the status of “paradise”. Society is stuck in suppressed fear and hatred leading to further conflicts while in denial of histories untold. UN:IMAGINABLE mirrors the banality of evil and its connection to everyday, mundane life and deals with the hour prior to death in the lives of victims and perpetrators. UN:IMAGINABLE is a transnational documentary musical theater exploring various forms of healing within spheres of repetitive histories, war, genocide and existence in disapora. Following the intense weeks of sharing, exchanging and learning, more than 20 people across 6 countries collectively contribute to a new media and offline experience with narratives told that are essentially human. Mightier than a Trampled Flower: https://oyoun.de/en/unsere-arbeit/mightier-than-a-trampled-flower/ The past centuries have seen numerous wars that glorified killing and dying and justified violence against nature. Nations of material wealth craved mastery and estranged people from one another. The illusion of victory and the will to conquer crumble into debris, where the post-war world can hardly catch its breath. Women* are in the middle of this burning carnage. Women*s bodies become battlefields, where the effects of war are intensified and its structures are internalized. Women* in wars live through intra-community, national and colonial violence. Women*s experience of a war is, however, more than a trauma, much more than a pathological state of mind. Women* in wars are more than victims, rougher and stronger than trampled flowers. In their every gesture towards survival, we see burning tigers fighting for life. Mightier than a Trampled Flower is a witness to women* in wars and against the history-making that is neglectful of experiences of the marginalized. It sheds light on the struggles of women*, whose chronicles are entangled with colonialism and decolonial movements, such as: women* in Brazil facing the threat of pervasive femicide, women* resistance fighters in the Algerian War of Independence, and “comfort women”, the survivors of forced sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. Imperialist warfares are rooted in the illusion of mastery which attempts to condition the reality of women*. In this reality, women* live through displacement and relocation. Through migration and exile, somatic remobilization and reassignment of social roles, women* continue to diverge and redefine what women*hood can be. Mightier than a Trampled Flower is an ongoing curatorial focus of Oyoun Berlin with artistic projects anchored in different forms of woman*hood in war. ESCAPISM: https://oyoun.de/en/unsere-arbeit/escapism/ With ESCAPISM, a platform was created in Oyoun for an artistic and socially critical experiment that connects virtual and physical spaces. In an interactive exhibition from December 3rd to 24th, visitors to the Oyoun can experience four hybrid game installations created by the ESCAPISM artists: tarare by téa boyarchuk, Thicker Than Blood Digital by Izdihar Afyouni, Guacuco by Sol Martínez-Solé and Embryonic Babies of Hot Winters by Avita Maheen. In a process of collective learning the four artists developed their explorative visions into four hybrid games. They concretized their ideas in digital as well as physical spheres through exchanges, workshops and collaboration with fellow artists, programmers, technicians and mentors. The artists are based in different parts of the online and offline worlds and the largest part of the development and production process has been enabled through a remote, digital communication - which makes ESCAPISM hybrid and experimental in its essence.
We understand that we can only continue with our work to a standard we deem achievable by sharing, connecting, learning, growing and expanding, in knowledge, care and solidarity, not in profits. While we cannot foresee the future of our organisation in the politically changing landscape, we can foster a network of municipalists, of care practitioners, of archivists and activists. We see our contribution in being those who critique, those who try something new, those who are willing to transcend where others may not yet or cannot want to tread. This can only be done in partnership with others. We have come to appreciated greatly the value of collaboration and make it a need to cooperate on each and everyone of our projects as ideas can only grow in value when shared. We currently have access to a fantastic team of 27 people and up to 20 fellows at any given time. Additionally our 3500 square metre location and the technical equipment, just as our staff, is available for community members. We are excited to engage in dialogue and are happy to offer our insights, our visions, our resources and our care.
We believe in the important work of uncovering the intersectional perspectives that connect us all, locally, regionally and internationally. The future of the Euro-Med region will be its most fruitful if shaped from a municipalist manner in our opinion and we are eager to play a part in this. We believe that our work in creating a platform for excellent diasporic art as well as a hub for knowledge production are the best prerequisites to joining the ALF Network. These elements of exchange as well as our roots being in methodologies such as Critical Race Theory and Pedagogy of the Oppressed, make the ALF Network a great match for our contributions and vice versa. We are excited to be shaping innovative and care-centric formats for intercultural dialogue in the region together with like-minded partners as well as those proposing alternatives and otherwise challenging the status quo.