Polyrama is a museum founded in 2021. It collects Berlin life stories on important life topics. To do this, we talk to very different people who give us personal insights into their life experiences in interviews.
We believe that every story is unique and should be heard. Nevertheless, Polyrama only shows a limited selection of positions. We primarily talk to people whose perspectives are not very visible. But stories from the majority society also appear. The compilation is not representative.
Every year, Polyrama juxtaposes as many different experiences as possible on a life theme, e.g. love, hope, death, etc. The theme makes it possible to perceive and empathize with similarities and differences between different life experiences.
Polyrama collects stories from people about their lives and thus follows the approach of “oral history”, the “told story”. Our collection does not focus on historical events, but rather on personal lives of the present.
Even if every life story is unique, the stories always refer to the framework conditions and barriers of our society and the resulting consequences for individuals.
Polyrama collects life stories in the form of audio recordings. When we interview deaf people, we make video recordings in sign language.
We edit these recordings and publish them here at Polyrama.de. This always happens in consultation with the story owners. The life stories are also available on all common audio platforms and the interviews with deaf people are available on our YouTube channel.
From March 24th Our museum at Stuttgarter Platz 2 is open. Here, visitors can discover individual life stories in changing exhibitions.
Our goal is to work as inclusively and barrier-free as possible. For this we have chosen the organization for inclusive cultural practice Platz da! seek advice. Disabled people tell their life stories at Polyrama and work equally in our team in various functions: as interviewers, artists and consultants.
By focusing on audio, we exclude a large part of the deaf community. We currently provide transcripts, but recognize that this is only an option for some people who are hard of hearing or deaf. Due to a lack of funding, it is currently not possible for us to have all audio recordings translated into sign language and filmed by native speakers. We strive for this in the future.
We are very happy to receive information, criticism and suggestions regarding accessibility issues. We have provided the following telephone number and email address.
Telephone Accessibility: 0176 85381799 Email:
“poly”, from the Greek “polýs”, means “many”, “several”.
“rama” (hórāma), also a Greek root word, means “to see”.
Polyrama means many points of view or perspectives
Museums are institutions for collecting, preserving, exhibiting and communicating. They determine what should be preserved for the future and thus determine our cultural heritage. The experiences of people from very different socializations, origins and life situations often have little space in them. With Polyrama we want to change that and are creating a collection of many perspectives of the lived present.
In order to represent as wide a variety of perspectives as possible, the search for life stories takes place on several levels. We talk to people from our environment. We work with organizations and interviewers who have access to specific communities. We look for positions that are not well represented. We invite you to share stories on social media and our website. [Link to Share your story]
When looking for interviewers, we attach great importance to diversity. This enables access to different communities on a trusting basis.
No, we don't do a fact check. Polyrama is not an investigative, journalistic project. We are interested in the life stories and personal experiences of people who tell their story from a subjective perspective. These are snapshots that provide a view of one's own life; individual facts may well be depicted in a distorted manner. We are not liable for the statements made by our conversation partners.
Our knowledge is limited. We try to be careful and not offer a platform to disturbing, discriminatory and misanthropic perspectives. However, we cannot rule out that statements may be made that may be hurtful to some people or groups without us noticing this. We are therefore grateful for information if discriminatory content occurs, we check it and reserve the right to remove such content from our platform.
Anna Chrusciel (she/her)* & Sadaf Farahani (she/her)
Idea, concept & management
Anna and Sadaf founded Polyrama and run the life story museum together. You have an overview of all areas of the museum and are primarily responsible for the artistic, content and strategic development and the acquisition of funds.
anna(at)polyrama.de
sadaf(at)polyrama.de
Stefanie Höpfner (she/her)
Organization and conceptual collaboration
Stefanie has been part of the team since its founding and works on the conceptual design of the museum. She supports the organizational processes of the museum and is the contact person for all questions about events, shops and cafés.
stefanie(at)polyrama.de
Ramin Parvin (he/him)
Audio editing
Ramin is very knowledgeable about collecting life stories. He edits the interviews into a coherent narrative. In addition, he is responsible for the narratives of queer life stories in the “Queer it!” project and conducts his own interviews for the museum.
ramin(at)polyrama.de
Fred Gehrig (all pronouns)
Core team
In the summer of 2021, Fred staged Adel's life story as an installation performance on Breitscheitplatz. Since the museum opened (March 2023), he has increasingly used his dramaturgical, art directorial and front of house capacities. With the exhibition 'Tutti Stutti', Fred is now also part of the team of interviewers.
Marie Konrad (she/her)
Social media & post production
Marie is the new social media expert at the museum. Together with Alexandra, she has been developing the media strategy and overseeing the various channels since November 2022. As a professional photographer, Marie will also take on photo work in the future and will support the organization of post-production. She is the contact person for all questions about social media and post-production.
marie(at)polyrama.de
Nina Ricarda Krause (she/her)
Volunteer coordination
Nina accompanied the development of Polyrama from the beginning. She is currently organizing volunteer work and is responsible for all inquiries relating to volunteer work. Every now and then she also does an interview.
nina(at)polyram.de
Christiane Gross, Sharon Smadja, Tatjana Petschi, Emily Hanisch,
Volunteers
Since October, a constantly growing team of volunteers has been supporting Polyrama with the transcriptions and other work on the interviews.
FSJ Culture & Inclusion
Since November we have had our first employee – a FSJ member. He*she is present at all important meetings, supports post-production and takes on important tasks such as image descriptions, image editing and the creation of address files. He*she will also implement his/her own project at Polyrama. He*she wishes not to be named.
Kai Strzebkowski (he/him)
Internship
Kai is doing an internship at Polyrama as part of his high school diploma at OSZ KIM. He supports the completion of interviews and public relations. With his love of technology, he is also always helpful with technical solutions.
Kilian Chluba (he/him), Léa Leven (she/her, Anee Fiaz (she/her), Danial Wonous (he/him)
Polyrama youth
The young people are working on building a collection of young perspectives on life. They meet every Thursday and conduct interviews, create exhibitions and have developed a game for exchanging biographical experiences. The youth group is always open to new members.
Ariane Spanier (she/her)
Visual design
Ariane is an expert in Polyrama shape and color. She develops all visual design materials from the logo to the flyers to the shop window design.
www.arianespanier.de
Markus Kehrer (he/him)
programming
Markus is the expert for our website. He has been there from the beginning, fixes bugs and continuously develops the site together with us.
www.mkehrerdesign.com
Lotti Seebeck
Amanda Hohenberg, Filipe Pirl
Intro Polyrama
As an artist, Lotti staged a performance for Polyrama together with Silja Korn in 2021 and then took over the production of our first intro. The speakers were Amanda and Filipe.
Performance von Lotti
Platz da! Barrier-free cultural mediation and process support for inclusion
Platz da! is our most important contact person for all questions about barrier poverty and inclusion. In workshops and bilateral support, we try to support Platz da! to make our museum as inclusive and barrier-free as possible. We owe space there! also numerous interviews with disabled people.
Benedict J. Sequeira Gerardo
Production and Translation & About Us Page DGS”
Benedikt took over and produced the first translations in DGS for Polyrama. He is an important advisor and contact person in questions of addressing and integrating the pigeon community.
Shabnam Sarmadi
Illustration of Tuba's story
Shab illustrated the story of Tuba. Whenever we don't get photos of people, they are taken by illustrators or artists. As an artist, Shab is involved in painting and illustrating books.
Interviewers
On each story page it is noted who conducted the interview.
The collection of life stories is based on biographical interviews. Different people from our team take turns conducting the interviews. Additionally, we are building a pool of interviewers made up of individuals and organizations.
Networks & Memberships
Polyrama is a member of Migrationsbeirat des Bezirks Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
Polyrama has been involved in the network since 2022 Museen queeren Berlin.
*We did not have this for people who did not provide pronoun information.
