Dear Berlin. Ten Berlin-based women artists from the Deutscher Künstlerbund | By Sonya Schönberger/Berliner Zimmer

Interviews conducted in the style of the »Berliner Zimmer« archive, create a many-facetted panorama of biographical and artistic narratives – a lively portrait of a city that is constantly changing.


Since 2018, Schönberger has been developing »Berliner Zimmer« – an ongoing interactive archive of video interviews with Berliners from backgrounds as diverse and heterogeneous as Berlin itself. Scheduled to last 100 years, the project preserves a long-term, many-voiced portrait of the city.


Berlin is a city of refuge, of self-realization and of perpetual change. For centuries, it has attracted people from very different backgrounds, cultures and generations, creating a dynamic fabric of interwoven life stories. Within this process, art becomes a mirror of developments within society – a space where issues of belonging, identity and equality can be addressed.


Since the early post-war years, women artists have been instrumental in making Berlin a major centre of art and culture. They created spaces, shaped discussions and drove social change – often outside established structures. At a time when the freedom of art and the survival of spaces for art are under discussion, their voices are especially important. They remind us that art is always an expression of self-determination, solidarity and social responsibility – and that these values are inseparably connected with the past and present of Berlin.


Ten members of the Deutscher Künstlerbund – Birgit Cauer, Catherine Rose Evans, Brigitte Hein, Veronika Kellndorfer, Gisela Kleinlein, Christl Mudrak, Anike Joyce Sadiq, Eva-Maria Schön, Nanaé Suzuki und Claudia Wieser – were interviewed in the style of the »Berliner Zimmer« project. The selection reflects the diversity of Berlin society: different age groups and backgrounds enter into dialogue, as well as different forms of artistic expression. The biographical narratives expand the conventional presentation of art and highlight tensions that are usually addressed in other ways. The focus here is not only on the physical artworks, but also on the voices and stories of the artists themselves. The project takes a look at women artists who have been exemplary in shaping the Deutscher Künstlerbund and who are writing its history today – a history that covers both themes relevant to urban politics and major concerns of international art discourse.


Alongside the video interviews, works by the interviewed artists will be presented in a spatial structure devised specially for the exhibition, creating an interplay between story and work, between the artists’ voices and the physical presence of their practice. The show opens up a space where the artist’s biographies and their works stand side by side, complementing one another.


After the exhibition, the interviews will be included in »Berliner Zimmer« an open, growing video archive developed by Schönberger in cooperation with Stadtmuseum Berlin. The interviews will remain accessible online, becoming part of the museum’s collection relating to the history of Berlin. They will also be kept in the video archive of the Deutscher Künstlerbund.


In a city that is perpetually reinventing itself, this project tells a story of continuity and change, of artistic perseverance and social movements. It is a tribute to Berlin and its women artists – to their voices, their spaces and their stories.


Sonya Schönberger has been living and working in Berlin since 1996. She studied ethnology at the Freie Universität and experimental media design at the University of the Arts in Berlin and she is currently Dorothea Erxleben Scholart at Braunschweig University of Art (HBK). Her artistic practice deals with biographical disruption in the context of political and social upheavals, based around people and the stories that become visible in interviews. The archive of these encounters forms the basis of her work, which also draws on existing public and private collections. In 2018, she founded »Berliner Zimmer« – a long-term video project based on the stories of the people of Berlin.



Interviewed and participating artists:
Birgit Cauer, Catherine Rose Evans, Brigitte Hein, Veronika Kellndorfer, Gisela Kleinlein, Christl Mudrak, Anike Joyce Sadiq, Eva-Maria Schön, Nanaé Suzuki and Claudia Wieser


Supported by funds from LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin