On 4/3/2016 people took over exhibition rooms of the Museum which they designed in a workshoplike process up to the presentation on 21/7/2016. They come/came from Albania, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, Pakistan and Syria. What they have, respectively had in common is that they had to flee from their countries – for whatever reasons. Most of them live(d) in a home in Berlin-Spandau; others have left this accommodation, live in their own apartments or were deported back into their "secure countries of origin". They are all KUNSTASYL, constitute together the initiative of artists, creative persons and asylum seekers.

On the walls they have drawn their memories of the lost homeland, the strenuous flight, the dangerous sea, drowning people. Parts of bed frames, no longer needed in emergency accommodation, have been composed by them in such a way that the works remind you of tents, boats or the lost daHEIM. Their personal histories make them representatives for a vast number of people and formulate in this way the collective sentiments of generations of those who have become homeless: these are Glances into Fugitive Lives.

A similar fate was suffered by people who had to flee within, to and from Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Biographies from those times show that there has always been immigration due to flight – that people leave, flee, arrive, stay, master their lives. And have dreams. These can be read on the labels attached to plants in the museum's garden, planted together by immigrants, museum employees and visitors.

Publication "Galnces into Fugitive Lives" (PDF)

Videos

Promo Video for the Exhibition daHEIM

Filmed at the opening of the exhibition

The people behind "daHEIM"

Barbara Caveng is one of the curators and the initiator of KUNSTASYL.

Diwali had to flee from Iraq from ISIS. He is charge of the technical aspects of building the exhibition.

Aymen is one of the exhibition's curators.

Inaam, 23, had to leave everything behind in Iraq, family and friends, all her belongings. Only a ring she could bring to Germany. In the exhibition she shows a series of drawings.

Dachil wanted to become an engineer. During his first year in Germany he took a completely different direction. He is one of the curators of the exhibition.

Prof. Dr. Tietmeyer is director of the Museum of European Cultures and let artists and asylum seekers create the exhibition.