Archive for the ‘Migration’ Category

Berlin Mondiale Calendar 2020

 

 

What better way to wrap my work with Berlin community arts and network organization Berlin Mondiale than to curate a calendar highlighting some of the past year’s programs and artistic collaborations.

For this project I was able to team up once more with Imad Gebrayel, whose beautiful design work with type in Arabic I had gotten to know during the production of WAS GEHT?! Magazine’s first print publication.

The typography design approach allowed us to create a collection of works that was able to seamlessly incorporate projects that are extremely divergent in style, plus, of course, be able to feature some of the literary workshops active in the network.

Here’s to a fabulous, creative year 2020.

December 28th, 2019

Perspectives: 30 Years after the Berlin Wall fell, some young film makers’ reflections

Super proud of WAS GEHT?! magazine’s latest short films – as part of a fall workshop series, we tackled thorny historical issues, of racism then and now…  in the end, the two films and film-making approaches that emerged couldn’t have been more different. Here’s two teaser-trailers, more to come in the coming months.  

 

 

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November 11th, 2019

The Moon Represents My Heart

I am thrilled that The Museum of Chinese in America / MOCA is featuring a series of my images from Winnie’s Bar. The Moon Represents My Heart: Music, Memory and Belonging will be on view from May 2 through September 15, 2019.

The show, is billed as a “lively and immersive exploration on [how] music in Chinese communities unites disparate histories – Cantonese opera; Asian American Movement music; Taiwan and Hong Kong pop music; karaoke; Beijing underground rock and others – to address the question: How does music reflect the experience of Chinese in America?”

Bonus feature: the title of the installation’s section in which the karaoke dive bar pics are showcased.

AMATEUR HOURS: Ecstatic Performance in Partying and Worship. Seriously!

A big Thank You! to Andrew Rebatta, Associate Curator at MOCA, for bringing me on board. The exhibition is co-curated by Rebatta, together with Hua Hsu, staff writer at The New Yorker, and MOCA’s Curator and Director of Exhibitions, Herb Tam.
 
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June 6th, 2019

WAS GEHT?! Magazine – first print publication launched!

 

A year after a group of young media makers
in Berlin founded WAS GEHT?! magazine as a
platform for the perspectives of young people
with biographies of forced displacement and
migration, the publication is proud to present
its first print volume.

Here’s the WAS GEHT?! Vol.01 digital copy,
although, in all truth, you should get a printed
version for full effect by writing to:

hallo(at)wasgeht.berlin

 





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@EverydayMigration is up and running

And we’re off, one month into launching the Instagram feed and related blog on Medium.  Follow along. For New Year’s, a series on smoking for the newly inspired quitters, and lots more great, dedicated longterm documentary work coming up next. Looking forward to seeing where this project will go in the coming year!

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January 4th, 2017

Afghan Memories Studio

The “Welcome to Exilistan” exhibition has reopened, and our studio space includes a sound and video booth collecting oral histories – memories, stories, viewpoints – from the Afghan diaspora in Berlin.

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The exhibit and studio space at Rosa Luxemburg Strasse 16 in Berlin Mitte.

Find out more about this project on our brand new Afghan Memories website, which will eventually feature the videos we are currently collecting.  For now, the studio space at Rosa Luxemburg Str. 16 in Berlin Mitte is becoming a home to the expanding Newsgroup Afghanistan team of young people, and a venue for talks and exchanges.  Ongoing infos, opening hours and announcements are best followed on our Facebook page.

Meanwhile, some more pics from behind the scenes of our Vernissage and events….

Afghan Memories Studio

Afghan Memories Studio

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Welcome to Exilistan

I had the great fortune to connect with a wonderful participatory media project for young Afghans in Berlin when visiting the city briefly in August, and was able to join the team for the opening weekend of workshops. Now I am back in Berlin for the year, just in time to complete the project, which is turning into a beautifully realized exhibition at Box Freiraum in Friedrichshain.

Welcome to Exilistan. Ausstellung und Vernissage, behind the scenes. Box Freiraum, September 2016.

More of the youth reporters’ work will be featured later on, once @EverydayMigration is up and running on Instagram and Medium, but for now, some behind the scenes images of the process and exhibition.

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Berlin Refugee Youths for Al Jazeera

So very happy to see the story on young refugees I photographed and interviewed in Berlin this fall published. The full piece can be seen and read over at Al Jazeera America. A huge thank you to Mark Rykoff for letting me produce this reportage, and for the great layout! With Andrew Curry (text) and Caroline Preston (editing.)

AJ_Opener

 

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January 2nd, 2016

Chinatown Community Young Lions on CBS News.com

A selection of images from my ongoing coverage of this awesome group of Chinatown youths is up on the CBS News website as a slide show! Check it out here!

CBS_opener

 

February 28th, 2015

Memory, and death, in Chinatown

The week leading up to Memorial Day weekend saw a series of politically symbolic memorials and vigils in the neighborhood, beginning with the unveiling of Private Danny Chen Way, which had been a couple of years in the making, followed by an impromptu vigil for a local grandfather, Wen Hui Ruan, who had been viciously attacked and beaten on an East Village street. And finally, two days of memorials for Sister Ping honored the life of a woman who was hailed as saintly community benefactor by her Fujianese compatriots, while wanted, and eventually sentenced, as a ruthless “snakehead” and profiteer by the authorities.
Private Danny Chen Way Private Danny Chen Way

 

Su Zhen Chen, Private Danny Chen’s mother, and Yan Tao Chen, his father, with the ceremonial street sign honoring their son.

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