Cats from Dubai

by barbara caveng | Apr 10, 2023

Cats from Dubai

Cats from Dubai Illustration © barbara caveng

A true story from Oderstraße in Neukölln, as it happened to me on 3.4.2023

I doubted the world, I doubted myself and above all my hearing. Was I suffering from an acoustic illusion caused by hypacusis, a sensorineural hearing loss?

Was my auditory perception in my Ieft ear no longer sufficient to understand the words in the context intended by the sender? Or in other words, had I gained the freedom to hear stories that had not been told that way?

I searched the other person's face for an interpretation of what had been said as I had heard it: "My cats from Dubai." Tentatively, almost bashfully, I ventured a repetition of the last two words, "...from.... Dubai...."

The day had held a lot of pain for me until these late afternoon hours, and so it seemed possible that my psyche had turned to other realities, obviously ones in which no Cheshire cats, but at least cats from Dubai were strolling across the tin roofs. Their existence was now confirmed to me by my chance acquaintance: "Yes," she added to my muttering, "just last week I picked up four cats from Dubai at the airport"!

In the reflection of her pupils, I saw the four cats flying over the Turkish-Syrian earthquake zone with a glowing eyes and splayed limbs. To land at Tegel - cats and other unusual flying animals have to fly into the airport, which is closed to normal air traffic - they ruffled their hair and lifted their humps by body contraction, initiating the braking process by extending their claws and digging into the ground on landing to come to an abrupt stop.

"Maybe you can ride my cats around town on the clothes horse sometime?"

Wow.... It took me some time to create the image in my mind of ambling through Neuköllln with cats on a rolling clothes horse instead of STREETWARE.
Would the animals cling to the clotheslines or hang like wet rags from two plastic strings or, hooking their tails, swing along to the rhythm of the cobblestones?

I preferred not to commit myself at this point, but to weigh the request carefully, and so I said goodbye - this, however, happily with the realisation that reality and phantasmorgia describe only two different perspectives of perception.

Magazine SOZIOKultur on the topic of ENERGY.

by barbara caveng | Feb 24, 2023

Magazine SOZIOKultur on the topic of ENERGY.

We are delighted that Alice Fassina has been named STREETWARE cover girl by the editorial team of SOZIOkultur!
he cover photo is taken from our performance SCHURF and was photographed by Paolo Gallo.

You can download the magazin here or download the magazin here.

Zum Inhalt von [ Heft 1/2023 ] schreibt der Bundesverband SOZIOkultur:

To have or not to have energy - this is the burning question that socioculture is currently facing on many levels in its own way: artistically, creatively, inventively and cooperatively, almost making us forget how much the current crises with all their consequences cost. It does so in its own way: artistically, creatively, inventively and cooperatively, almost making us forget how much the current crises with all their consequences cost. But even if it sometimes seems as if socioculture is a perpetual motion machine that, once set in motion, remains in motion without further energy supply - it is not. It is all the more remarkable, therefore, how time and again - thanks to the tireless power of those active and the support of sponsors - it draws strength from imaginative and collaborative action and drives sustainable change by generating positive social energy.

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur

by barbara caveng | Feb 9, 2023

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur

Soziokultur in Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Herausforderungen

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur erschienen

„Die Jahre 2021/22 waren nicht nur gesamtgesellschaftlich, sondern auch für die Soziokultur eine herausfordernde Zeit. Die Auswirkungen der zahlreichen Krisen treffen insbesondere Initiativen und Einrichtungen in freier Trägerschaft auf vielerlei Ebenen und machen die Notwendigkeit von zuverlässiger Unterstützung für die Soziokultur deutlich….[…]38 Projektbeispiele aus allen Förderprogrammen veranschaulichen: Soziokultur gestaltet Gesellschaft mit, setzt sich kreativ mit dem Zeitgeschehen auseinander und bringt Menschen jeden Alters und Hintergrundes zusammen. Ob in Stadt oder Land, hybrid oder digital – den Krisen und Restriktionen zum Trotz entwickeln Akteur*innen über alle Bundesländer und künstlerischen Sparten hinweg neue partizipative Formate. Hinter jedem Projekt stehen zahlreiche engagierte Kulturschaffende und Bürger*innen, die Geschichten der Menschen und Orte erzählen. “ (Auszug aus dre Pressemitteilung des Fonds Soziokultur) Wir freuen uns, dass STREETWARE saved item eines der Projekte ist, die in der Jahresausgabe 22 berücksichtigt werden.

Den Jahresbericht 21_22 gibt es online als Blätterkatalog oder als PDF zum download.
STREETWARE findet ihr auf Seite 10.

Rag-Peep-O-Rama

by barbara caveng | Dec 7, 2022

Rag-Peep-O-Rama

Performance in the windowsof the gallery nord/ art association Tiergarten (c) Joachim Gern & Paolo Gallo

I’M ONLY HUMAN AFTER ALL

DON’T PUT YOUR BLAME ON ME,

DON’T PUT YOUR BLAME ON ME

Rag ’n‘ Bone man

my body my choice – der Freiheitskampf von Lumpen und Gesindel

What meaning does clothing have when naked survival is at stake? When vestimentary codes become an existential confession and when the refusal of a certain dress code means that life hangs by a hair. What ethics does military chic follow and what attitude is hidden behind the camouflage? What endows the steely body sex appeal in an outfit that signals readiness to kill, and what message does a first lady send from the cover of Vogue?

Wo:men. Life. Freedom

Lumpen-Peep-O-Rama ©Paolo Gallo 130 (10)

Performers from STREETWARE examined their bodies, their own and other people's perceptions, put uniformed aesthetics up for debate and transformed the windows of the Galerie Nord into a space of breaking boundaries: Look at us! Alice, barbara, Flora, Jan, KDindie, Lotti, Nazanin and Oksana presented their bodies to the public and passers-by, covered and uncovered themselves, deformed their corporality and distorted their faces. They have formulated their perfect imperfect and flirted with the bad-bitch image, indulged in body worship and brushed each other's armpit hair. Butt cheeks to the left and right of the thong g-string challenged the eye and invited for a visual walk across body landscapes: Do[n't] hurt me!
I am only human after all, don’t put your blame on me!

Peep O Rama

by Boris Steinberg 2022

Am Ende des Kaleidoskops
zeigt sich
die Peep Show des Lebens
Essenz unseres Seins
im Labyrinth ohne Ende
Mosaike und Farben
Gesichter und Hände
Hereinspaziert, Hereinspaziert !
Eintritt ist Frei !
Schaufensterartikel
die Peep Show beginnt
Komm, sei dabei…!

Peep-o-Rama

Feind küsst Feind
Krieg umarmt Frieden
Liebe küsst Hass
und Dass
was bisher vermieden
wird unumgänglich
nun sein…

Gesindel tanzt
in Haute Couture
High Fashion
mutiert zu Lumpen
Löcher und Strass
trägt jedes Gewand
Risse und Wunden
trägt jedes Kleid
Und alle Sinne bereit
am Puls der Zeit

Peep – O- Rama

Es ist für mich
Es ist für dich
Es ist für Uns

There were peeps by

Photographs by Paolo Gallo and Joachim Gern
Technical support: Stephan Kolb and Gallery stuff
Idea and rehearsal management: barbara caveng
Organisation and production management: Alice Fassina

Flora Carmim

is addicted to languages. Among other things, she studied German. Bass guitar was the first instrument of her youth, followed by guitar, cavaquinho - but singing occupies the favourite place in her heart. Her favourite thing is to perform as a drag performer on the street and on public stages.

barbara caveng

is an interdisciplinary working visual artist with a focus on three-dimensional artistic practice, participatory art, interventions and performances.

Alice Fassina

is an observer, Japanologist and costume designer whose artistic approach and working processes are based on sustainability and circular economy. She shares her expertise on alternatives to fast fashion as a guide, lecturer and workshop leader in various collaborations, including Circular Berlin, Green Fashion Tours, community organisations and educational institutions. In recent years, she was a co-creator of the participatory art project STREETWARE saved item and worked in various cultural and artistic projects with young people from different backgrounds. The exchange with the new generations is important to her, as it also enables an indirect and sustainable shaping of the future.

Kdindie

"Kdindie is a Berlin based italian-polish performance artist. Creates body architectures at the intersection of dance, theater and costume design. Through his self-made visionary characters triggers people imagination with a queer decolonial approach. Facilitator of conscious movement practices by his creative method indiemotion bridges diverse communities to be unique and united."

Jan Markowsky

was an engineer in the GDR, in East and West Berlin. Contact with opponents through dissidents in Jena after imprisonment of his brother Bernd who was detained related to Wolf Biermann's expatriation, Jan emigrated to West Berlin in 1984. Various jobs as energy consultant and engineer for building services. Left the office in January 2000 after a dispute with his boss, then left his apartment.
"As a flexible and open-minded person, coped well overall with life without an apartment. Have had time to participate in preparing meals for the homeless, play theater, give lectures, participate in political committees. After a few years, regularly contributed to the social street magazine 'Strassenfeger' and later participated in 'Strassenfeger-radio'. During that time often photographed and interviewed.
Credo: I have nothing to hide, I can show myself!"

Oksana Moskovchenko

Born and raised in Ukraine. I spent a lot of time working with people, as I am a nurse by profession. However, I often went to Kyiv, where meetings of the Ukrainian Journalist Foundation were held, because my mother is a journalist, and I helped her in her work. I love creativity and art, as well as learning something new, learning from interesting people.

I value openness and respect for personal boundaries in people.

Now I'm learning German, and I'm learning to live in a new country and understand the local mentality. I left for Germany because of the war that russia started in my country.

Now it is difficult for me to think and plan, but I definitely want to find a job here, maybe not in the medical field, as I am open to something new, and I want to be able to help those who remained in Ukraine.

Lotti Seebeck

is an artist and cultural organiser who has been developing performances in collective formations that bring social issues into public space for several years. Intervention and site-specific research are always an important part of her work. She is part of the Common Ground initiative at the Berlin University of the Arts, which provides academic access to the arts for marginalised artists, and develops her own projects on community building, urban transformation and anti-discrimination.

Nazanin Shamloo

was born and raised in Iran. In the haze of the intellectual families of Ahmad Shamloo and the newspaper owner Towfigh, her biography was always strongly interwoven with the political events of the country. As the only child of early divorced parents, she spent her school years at German schools in Tehran, Paris, Vienna and the Odenwald, then studied medicine in Essen and has run a psychotherapy practice since she was 34. She has had three children, early, at 21, and late, at 40. She has danced and sung all her life and more intensively in the last 15 years, which she does passionately in her artistic home Berlin.

Become an influencer for a wearable future: Ecologize, decolonize and degender your style!

Kindly supported by the Bezirksamtes Mitte, Berlin as part of the Recycling Design Prize exhibition. Special thanks to http://sektorheimat.de/, Institut für urbane Gestaltung.

Laudatio

by barbara caveng | Oct 24, 2022

Laudatio

on the occasion of the awarding of the 2nd Innovation Prize to STREETWARE saved item
By Stefanie Duncker on October 20,, 22 at the Kulturzentrum Pumpe, Berlin

LUMPENSAMMLEREI, WASCHSALON, TEXTILE FORENSIK, HAUPTWÄSCHE, FILIALEN, PROGRAMME, STÄRKESTOP

Anyone who has visited the website of the project 'STREETWARE - saved item' will get an idea of how many fibres and connections, strands of searching and storytelling this project consists of.

The starting point of the project are discarded clothes on the streets of Berlin. STREETWARE, directed by barbara caveng, understands the found objects as branches for textiles and equally for stories of local and global entanglement. Saved item - the rescued piece of fashion and clothing in this project stands for abundance and deprivation at the same time; but it also stands for quasi unread stories connected to these textiles. Which of the modern rags will be included in a new collection is therefore decided by the collectors: Is there something interesting in it or not? In their own shop, the garments are processed, made into a brand with logo patches, commercial bluff that is given away and sustainable use all in one. But this is only one part of the extremely comprehensive overall project: In the middle of Corona time, a 24-hour performance starts on a huge garment dump behind glass, branches of shops are also created in the district library, the collection is presented highly professionally with many amateurs on Tempelhofer Feld as a cat walk, numerous laundry stands on wheels form a kind of laundry sculpture in the park, homeless people advise the actors as they walk through 'the big flat' of the city, and Ugandan designers* and start-ups join in the discussion at a conference on culture and politics in the context of sustainability.

The makers of STREETWARE seem to follow every thread they find and develop their own action from it within the project. People from all contexts and from very different professions contribute with their knowledge of the cycles of textiles and with their ability to shape the STREETWARE collection as fashion, but also as a way of thinking. It is about resources of knowledge, material and visionary phantasy to think things further and make them visible.

The project is unique in its diversity. It is outstanding in terms of translating social, cultural and economic contexts into an artistic expression. STREETWARE - Saved item proves how branched and how connected society and unknown stories about clothing and textiles are. Artistically translated and with the participation of very different people, it exposes the use of resources using the example of clothing. It does so in a fun and integrative way that is also highly political.

Kunstasyl under the team leadership of barbara caveng has followed the ever-changing questions within the project without regard for its own resources. This is a dilemma in cultural work: one cannot avoid the questions that always arise anew and differently in the project. Kunstasyl does not evade, that is particularly impressive. We hope there is strength again or still for future projects.

We would like to support that a little.

The jury awards the second "Innovation Prize Socioculture" on the theme of sustainability with great fascination to the project "STREETWARE - Saved item" by the

Kunstasyl e.V. - with its Team leadership barbara caveng.

Stefanie Duncker is a board member of the Fonds SozioKultur and director of the Muggenhof Cultural Office of the City of Nuremberg, , responsible for general programme work and projects.

Cats from Dubai

Cats from Dubai

Cats from Dubai Illustration © barbara caveng

A true story from Oderstraße in Neukölln, as it happened to me on 3.4.2023

Magazine SOZIOKultur on the topic of ENERGY.

Magazine SOZIOKultur on the topic of ENERGY.

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur

Soziokultur in Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Herausforderungen

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur erschienen

Rag-Peep-O-Rama

Rag-Peep-O-Rama

I’M ONLY HUMAN AFTER ALL

I’M ONLY HUMAN AFTER ALL

DON’T PUT YOUR BLAME ON ME,

DON’T PUT YOUR BLAME ON ME

my body my choice – der Freiheitskampf von Lumpen und Gesindel

Wo:men. Life. Freedom

Peep O Rama

There were peeps by

Flora Carmim

barbara caveng

Alice Fassina

Kdindie

Jan Markowsky

Oksana Moskovchenko

Lotti Seebeck

Nazanin Shamloo

Become an influencer for a wearable future: Ecologize, decolonize and degender your style!

Laudatio

Laudatio

on the occasion of the awarding of the 2nd Innovation Prize to STREETWARE saved item
By Stefanie Duncker on October 20,, 22 at the Kulturzentrum Pumpe, Berlin

LUMPENSAMMLEREI, WASCHSALON, TEXTILE FORENSIK, HAUPTWÄSCHE, FILIALEN, PROGRAMME, STÄRKESTOP

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Cats from Dubai

Cats from Dubai

Cats from Dubai Illustration © barbara caveng

A true story from Oderstraße in Neukölln, as it happened to me on 3.4.2023

Magazine SOZIOKultur on the topic of ENERGY.

Magazine SOZIOKultur on the topic of ENERGY.

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur

Soziokultur in Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Herausforderungen

Kulturszene 22 des Fonds Soziokultur erschienen

Rag-Peep-O-Rama

Rag-Peep-O-Rama

I’M ONLY HUMAN AFTER ALL

I’M ONLY HUMAN AFTER ALL

DON’T PUT YOUR BLAME ON ME,

DON’T PUT YOUR BLAME ON ME

my body my choice – der Freiheitskampf von Lumpen und Gesindel

Wo:men. Life. Freedom

Peep O Rama

There were peeps by

Flora Carmim

barbara caveng

Alice Fassina

Kdindie

Jan Markowsky

Oksana Moskovchenko

Lotti Seebeck

Nazanin Shamloo

Become an influencer for a wearable future: Ecologize, decolonize and degender your style!

Laudatio

Laudatio

on the occasion of the awarding of the 2nd Innovation Prize to STREETWARE saved item By Stefanie Duncker on October 20,, 22 at the Kulturzentrum Pumpe, Berlin

LUMPENSAMMLEREI, WASCHSALON, TEXTILE FORENSIK, HAUPTWÄSCHE, FILIALEN, PROGRAMME, STÄRKESTOP

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

on the occasion of the awarding of the 2nd Innovation Prize to STREETWARE saved item
By Stefanie Duncker on October 20,, 22 at the Kulturzentrum Pumpe, Berlin