counterpart

The travelling exhibition ‘counterpart’ explores issues of exclusion and inequality through eight biographical portraits. The life stories told are characterised by flight, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Gypsyism, honour-based violence or a life without secure residency status. The portraits illustrate how different forms of exclusion are intertwined and why simplistic categorisations often fall short.

Building on the concept of group-focused hostility, the exhibition highlights the overlaps, contradictions and blind spots in social debates. Whilst the term primarily describes forms of devaluation and exclusion, the biographical portraits place the focus on the perspectives of the people who live with the consequences. It becomes clear that individual experiences are often more complex than the categories we use to discuss discrimination.

These personal stories invite us to question entrenched perspectives and to rethink concepts of belonging, power relations and solidarity.

The exhibition was created as part of the ‘WERTE – what unites us’ project by the Kurdish Community in Germany.

The project is funded as part of the federal programme “Demokratie leben!” run by the Federal Ministry of Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.