And Our Cities Change
A new exhibition with @eigenart_lab / Torstraße 220 / Berlin-Mitte

Tuesday ‐ Friday 2 pm ‐ 6 pm / Saturday 11 am ‐ 6 pm
Mehr Informationen unter eigen-art-lab / Wir Sind Hier

In 1982 in Hamburg, Semra Ertan, a 25-year-old poet born in Turkey and a migrant worker (a so-called Gastarbeiter:in) who emigrated to Germany in 1972, undertook an act of protest against racism. This act was imbricated in symbology and utterly final: public self-immolation. In the 350 plus poems and satirical pieces that she penned, Ertan chronicled her life and experience as a Turkish migrant.

In 1984, a racist arsonist attacked a migrant neighborhood in Duisburg, murdering seven members of the Satır and Turhan families whilst seriously injuring further family members and residents. The officials investigating ignored the body of evidence demonstrating that racism motivated the attack.

In 2012, 22-year-old Burak Bektaş convened with a group of friends on a street in Berlin-Neukölln. An unidentified white man approached the group and, without uttering a word, fired at them–killing Bektaş and seriously injuring two of his friends. The perpetrator has still not been identified.

In 2016, the German police arrested 24-year-old Yaya Jabbi, accusing him of being in possession of 1.65 grams of cannabis. Jabbi was raised in Gambia and had travelled to Libya in 2013 and, as a refugee, had then migrated through Italy before settling in Germany with his brother. Shortly before his release, Jabbi was found dead in his cell. According to the Justice Department, Jabbi had committed suicide, despite the judicial authorities admit that there were no signs of suicide risk in advance.