EXILE – ART WITHOUT BORDERS

Participating artists:

Tammam Azzam, Simin Jalilian, Volo Bevza, Soufia Erfanian, Tirdad Hashemi, Zoncy Heavenly, Azita Ibrahimi, Navid Mashouf, Aleksandra Kononchenko, Lukhar, Ramin Parvin, Victoria Pidust, Ruba Salameh, Özlem Sarıyıldız, Shabnam Sarmadi, Daria Syvakos, Hakan Sinan Usta

The artistic works on display focus on individual experiences of exile: personal stories of threat, displacement and loss, but also of arrival, adaptation and artistic renewal.

The exhibition deliberately avoids thematic or media-specific guidelines. Instead, it reflects the diversity of experiences and working methods of the participating artists.
Numerous works deal with memory, identity, home and foreignness – or with the preservation of cultural practices threatened by war and repression.

Exile art is not a marginal topic, but an expression of global realities.

Many artists around the world are forced to leave their homes – whether due to war, political persecution, censorship or personal threats.
Fleeing means loss: of home, networks, social role and cultural context.
At the same time, it opens up new opportunities: freedom, security and new means of expression.

In our interconnected world, terms such as migration, exile, diaspora and transnationality are no longer to be understood solely in geographical or political terms.
They describe complex forms of belonging, mobility and identity, overlapping and flowing into one another.

Migration begins as a movement across borders. Exile means being forced to leave one's place of origin – often associated with the desire to return. In the diaspora, collective identities emerge that connect past and present, origin and new living environments across generations.

Finally, transnationality describes life in more than one cultural or geographical space – as the reality of many people who feel, remember and shape across borders.

With the exhibition EXIL, HAUS.KUNST.MITTE. is sending a clear signal: for the visibility of exiled artists, the recognition of their creative achievements and the diversity of cultural perspectives in Berlin's art landscape.

Although Berlin has been considered the German capital of exile for decades, exhibitions featuring contemporary exiled artists have been rare until now.
HAUS.KUNST.MITTE., supported by the ‘Asyl der Kunst Stiftung’ (Asylum of Art Foundation), is closing this gap.

The first group exhibition, ‘BRÜCHE – Künstler:innen im Berliner Exil’ (BREAKS – Artists in Exile in Berlin), opened in 2024 – for many of those involved, it was their first institutional presentation in Germany.
The exhibition series sees itself as an ongoing project with a cultural-political agenda.
It highlights that exiled artists bring with them not only their biographies, but also resources, perspectives and artistic impulses that enrich our society. They actively shape cultural life – not as an exception, but as a natural part of a diverse present.

Especially in times of increasing exclusion, polarisation and indifference, the EXIL exhibition sends a signal against forgetting and marginalisation.
It honours the courage, attitude and creativity of those who have not lost their voice in exile.
A brochure with a text by Burmese writer, activist and political prisoner Ma Thida will be published to accompany the exhibition.

Events

Soft Opening: Meet the artists
13 – 14 September 2025 | 12 noon – 6 pm
Vernissage: Meet the artists
20 September 2025 | 6–10 pm

Kick-off talk: On the courage to open spaces
Esra Küçük, Chair of the Schwarzkopf Foundation Young Europe

7 October 2025 | 7 pm Guided tour and workshop (also in sign language)
9 November 2025 | 4–6 pm

Meet the artists with Polyrama Game of Stories
24 November 2025 | 5–7 pm

Finissage: Meet the artists
15 December 2025 | 5–8 pm