ZU/FLUCHT

ZU/FLUCHT is an outdoors exhibition on the path leading to the Exilmuseum, which will be built in the next few years at Anhalter Bahnhof. ZU/FLUCHT presents the future museum and its focus of interest. The exhibition deals not only with the fate of refugees back then, but like the Exilmuseum it also spans a bridge to the present: for today, Germany is a country where many seek refuge.

 

The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Institut für Architektur, TU Berlin and built of former housing used by today’s refugees in Germany.  Over two semesters, students of the Natural Building Lab engaged in analysing the units’ material, use, and possibilities for repurposing them, designed and planned this exhibition, and erected it with their own hands. For five months, the museum was temporarily located in the exhibition.

 

As with everything else temporary the ZU/FLUCHT had to be disassembled and removed from the spot at Anhalter Bahnhof to make way for the construction work on the new permanent building. Already in the first analysing and planning phases it was always the wish that the containers and used materials would not be thrown away but reused. Preferably reused by other Berlin groups that work with refugees and/or with appropriation of space in the inner city. I was commissioned to organise and coordinate this process. Not only did i have to plan the logistics of the disassembly and transport but also choose and work with the suitable organisations to take over the different parts of the exhibition. During the first 2 weeks of November in 2021 the exhibition was completely taken apart, separated, and transported to new locations and then reassembled on the new spot. The different parts went to local schools, organisations working with urban development in the area, like Bauhuette Berlin and the Rathausblock, and artist collectives and are now used in their respective work.