The photographer Heike Steinweg portrays women living in exile in Berlin. The women come from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds. They range from the author Rasha Abbas, who has already published her first book in Germany, to the political activist and artist Kefah Ali Deeb, who reports on conditions in Syria at international conferences, to people with a status that remains totally uncertain. The women nonetheless all share their will and their courage to build a new life for themselves.

Women are in the focus, since in times of war they must take on responsibility for roles previously denied to them. Through war, expulsion and flight, upheavals come about and taboos fall to the wayside.

All of the portraits were taken in a studio. The women gaze with self-confidence and openness into the camera. The photographs contain no references to the origin or the fates of the women portrayed. The portraits are shown in the exhibition on a life-size scale so that the visitors can enter into a dialogue with the portrayed women. The women themselves are able to speak through personal texts.