KulturMarktHalle e.V.

The association KulturMarktHalle e.V. was founded in 2016 as a voluntary initiative of people from different professional and cultural contexts. The connecting element was the volunteer work in the refugee accommodation. Our common vision was developed out of our shared experience in the effort to achieve good inclusion of our new neighbours: the creation of an open place for meetings, for art and culture, which should offer space for ideas and personal initiatives in a colourful neighbourhood of old and new Berliners. The importance of appreciation of different cultural and social backgrounds is as important to us as the promotion of intergenerational knowledge transfer, the culture of mutual encouragement and empowerment through community and lifelong learning and life experiences. We see ourselves as an empowering space for new models of living and learning together in horizontal and mostly self-organized structures. In May 2018 we found this place in an empty department store in former East Berlin and started to make the idea of the KulturMarktHalle a reality. The concept of the KulturMarktHalle was discussed, planned and developed as a model in common workshops with local residents of different origins. At monthly general meetings and through the preparation work of project groups such as: exhibitions, events, culture, finances, spatial planning, the concept was reviewed, adapted, further structured and completed. In mixed teams of new and old Berliners* we carried out many of the craftsmanship tasks for the restoration of the property ourselves. Here the focus was on learning from and doing with one another as an essential way of reducing possible reservations towards people with a different cultural background and creating a sense of community based on mutual respect, trust, curiosity and openness. In the two years of our existence our team has grown, our hall has become a functional, multifunctional place for exhibitions, seminars, various cultural and educational events, concerts, etc. In the near future our workshop area will also be fully functional and will complement our offer as a meeting place for the neighbourhood. The extensive cultural programme, which has been in place since July 2018, includes exhibitions, theatre performances, dance and concerts. But also various different formats such as sewing café, neighbourhood coffee gossip and the like, which are mostly conceived and implemented through voluntary, neighbourly, volunteer work in the programme team. Although we can record an ever-increasing participation of the immediate neighbourhood and many refugees from close accommodation, access to the "old-established" is not always easy. The Mühlenkiez is one of the typical panel housing estates, as they were built around the seventies and eighties in many larger cities. The first occupation of the housing estate in the Mühlenkiez district dates back to 1978, which means that the age structure of the neighbourhood is relatively high. After the fall of the Wall, the neighbourhood underwent an urban restructuring in which many of the community structures from GDR times became less important and fewer places were available that were indispensable to keep well-functioning social networks alive. Due to the displacement of many residents from inner-city districts and the ingress of young families, the structure of the neighbourhood's population will change. We see this as both a challenge and an opportunity. In close cooperation with the surrounding schools, daycare centres and other educational institutions, we want to make our project even more attractive for children. Sustainability and deceleration find more and more room in our program through the activities of the Eco-AG, e.g. through urban gardening projects or the realization of mobile buildings, like our Tinyhouse. Among other things, they point the way to a new everyday culture based on mutual appreciation, mindfulness and the common good. -----------------