Burden - أثر
HD Video 13'00''
2019

An experimental documentary film that documents different discussions and conversations of friends who live in Europe, especially Berlin, the city that became a cultural point for “Arab” North African - West Asian artists after the revolutions in the region. This film questions different worries and focal points for a major cause which is the Palestinian cause and the encounter with Israelis on a foreign land. When you are dealing with your own struggles, of fitting in a new culture, your own refuge, your own inner conflicts and mental health after surviving wars and exile. Meanwhile it deals with concept of here and there, the concept of Us and Them. In the film it is not clear where is here neither there, who are they /us. It’s a controversial status of mind and it’s an intense reflection of the intense realities we are living.

Carmel Alabbasi is a Palestinian visual artist. She was born in Damascus, and grew up in Gaza. She lived in different places on her way to settle in Berlin. Her work is driven by the socio-political environment, reflective of her own personal experiences. She creates visual narratives, by exploring broad themes related to conflict, displacement and cumulative memories and weaving them with personal subjects of identity, trauma and intimacy through the use of photography, video installations and film.

Berlin, (Be)longing, and Bread
Foto Reportage
2020

The so-called Arab Spring in 2011 and its aftermath have transformed Berlin. For many newcomers from the Arab world, Berlin has become the place of (temporary) home-making. Arriving, settling and making a home span various localities and temporalities and are charged with emotions. Food is an important aspect of home-making and a connector of the ‘near’ and ‘far’, the ‘before’ and ‘now’. Bread represents both “substance and symbol” having important cultural, social, political and economic connotations. Just like other food, it can trigger memories, create longing and, simultaneously, satisfy and sooth the yearning for home. Arab flatbread has become part of Berlin, as part of the process of home-making of newcomers from the Arab world.

Mohammad Al Bdewi has worked as a photo journalist for the past ten years. He witnessed and captured on camera the beginning of the Syrian uprising in 2011. Then, he worked in Cairo where he traced the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution from 2011-2014. In Cairo, Mohammad worked as a freelance photo journalist mainly for the Goethe Institute. His pictures were published in Spiegel, Deutsche Welle, France24, the website of Goethe Institute Cairo, and in different edited volumes. Some pictures were exhibited in Goethe Institute Berlin in 2013. He is a team member of the award-winning project Wir sprechen fotografisch. Since 2017, Mohammad lives in Berlin and works as a freelancer in media design, mainly as a cameraman.

The work I am showing is an outcome of my communication with five Arab women living and working in Berlin in the fields of art and culture. Initially, the idea was to follow and document some details from their daily routine, their space of work, some personal objects and things that define them. I would then create collages, out of the images I shot from their day to day life, to produce a sort of homage to each one of them.
Along the way, I came across the common denominator through my constant correspondence with the collaborators, of talking about dreams which I find fascinating, and uncanny, from repairing the sphinx’s nose to roaming endlessly in the desert in a hybrid human body and head of a horse. I decided to depict some scenes described by some of the women. The process unfolded at the end and the work took the shape of semi-surreal forms of small colleges.

Ruba Salameh (*1985) is a visual artist born in Nazareth / Palestine. She obtained both B.A (2006-10) and M.F.A in Fine Arts at Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design in Jerusalem (2012-2014). Her work varies from painting to video, photography and installations. Through her work she questions notions of land, geographies, displacement.
She worked as a lecturer in the History of Art painting and practical classical painting at the Arab College in Haifa and conducted short term workshops at Bezalel academy. Together with curator Fadwa Naamna she has worked on a research film about the recently emerging Palestinian cultural scene in Haifa in the last two years, its complex relation to self-organization / autonomy and how it is operating within the constantly changing environment. Ruba currently is focusing on painting and has a solo exhibition “Tensegrity” at Zawyeh Gallery in Dubai. She is presently in residency in Berlin, at BLO ateliers within the program HIER & JETZT: Connections.

Tante aus Deutschland
HD Video, 39’25”
2019

Tante aus Deutschland ist ein semi-fiktionaler Charakter und eine zentrale Figur der zeitgenössischen südosteuropäischen Folklore. Sie ist die Göttin der Migration, ein Symbol des Erfolgs, des Geldes und des guten Lebens anderswo. Fast jede Familie hat ihre „Tante“ oder kennt eine. Die zirkulierenden Geschichten kreieren einen zeitgenössischen Migrationsmythos, der häufig in Deutschland verortet ist.
Die Komplexität dieses Charakters dient als Motivation für mein Work-in-Progress – Migration und die Narrative um sie. Ich starte dabei bei meiner eigenen Erfahrung als Migrantin in Deutschland und konfrontiere diese mit bestimmten kulturellen Konstrukten meiner Herkunftsregion, reflektiert in meiner derzeitigen Position. Die Videoarbeit dokumentiert die Diskussion zwischen mir und meinen Tanten, die vor 26 Jahren in Deutschland ankamen. Wir besprechen dieses „Statussymbol“, seine Realität und die Hoffnung auf ein besseres Leben. In dieser Interviewsituation beraten sie mich, wie ich mich in der deutschen Gesellschaft „besser integrieren“ kann und wir teilen persönliche Ängste rund um Verantwortung, Schuldgefühle, Erwartungen, und Rückkehr.

Mila Panić (geb. 1991 in Bosnien und Herzegowina) hat an der Kunstakademie der Universität Banja Luka in der Republik Srpska in Bosnien studiert. 2017 schloss sie außerdem einen Master an der Bauhaus Universität Weimar ab, im Programm Kunst im öffentlichen Raum und neue künstlerische Strategien. In ihrer künstlerischen Arbeit spiegeln sich ihre persönlichen Erlebnisse und ihre Herkunft: Sie bearbeitet Themen wie Migration, Identität und Zugehörigkeit. Dabei verhandelt sie die existierenden Narrative der (Balkan) Diaspora. Sie definiert diese Narrative neu und arbeitet zu Wahrnehmungen des “besseren Lebens”.
Ihre Arbeiten wurden bereits international ausgestellt, unter anderem im Kunsthaus Dresden, auf der Moscow Biennale for Young Art, im Künstlerhaus Wien und dem Nationalmuseum für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Skopje (Nordmazedonien). Mila Panić war bei zahlreichen Residencies, Festivals und anderen Veranstaltungen zu Gast. Sie gründete die Plattform Fully Funded Residencies, die den Zugang zu Finanzierungs- und Mobilitätsangeboten für Künstler*innen verbessern soll und auf der zum Austausch und zur kritischen Reflektion des Modells Künstler*innenresidenzen eingeladen wird. Zur Zeit lebt und arbeitet Mila Panić in Berlin.

***ENGLISH***

Tante aus Deutschland (Aunt from Germany) is a semi-fictional character and a central figure in contemporary folk narratives of southeastern Europe. She is the goddess of migration, the symbol of success, money and a good life somewhere else. Almost every family has a „Tante“ or knows one, and the stories that circulate create the contemporary migration myth that most often takes place in Germany.

The complexity of this character serves as the motivation for my work in progress – migration and the narrative surrounding it. I start from my direct experiences as a migrant in Germany, juxtaposing them with the encounter of certain cultural constructs formed by the region I come from and reflected in my current position. The video work records the discussion between me and my aunts that arrived in Germany 26 years ago. We discuss this 'status symbol', it’s reality, the constant aspiration for a better life and through the interview model, they advise me on the next steps of how to ”better integrate” into German society and personal anxieties including the feelings of responsibility, guilt, expectations, and thoughts of return.

Mila Panić (b. 1991 in Bosnia and Herzegovina) studied at the Academy of Arts - University of Banja Luka in the Republic of Srpska, Bosnia. In 2017 she gained a Master Degree at the Bauhaus - Universität Weimar, department of Art in Public Space and New Artistic Strategies. In her artistic practice, her background and personal experiences are vividly expressed through subjects such as migration, identity, and belonging. Her works redefine the existing narratives of the diaspora (with the focus on Balkan diaspora at the moment) and the perception of a better life. Her works have been exhibited internationally at Kunsthaus Dresden, the Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Künstlerhaus Wien (Austria), and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje (North Macedonia) among others. Mila Panić has participated in various residencies, festivals and talks. She is the initiator of Fully Funded Residencies, a platform for faster and easier overview of art residences, mobility funds, and grants as well as for sharing experiences and critical reflection on AIR models. Currently, she lives and works in Berlin.