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On March 23rd It's an open day - you can come at any time from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m Walk past and celebrate 1 year with us at Stuttgarter Platz 2. It offers food & drink, guided tours, insights into projects and Series of events and lots of personal exchange.

Take advantage of the opportunity to see our current exhibition “Young in "Difficult times" to look at, hear and experience - that's possible namely only until mid-April! We look forward to seeing you!

Summer workshop will be postponed to the fall break due to illness.
Details will follow shortly.

The Power of the Arts is an initiative of Philip Morris GmbH and, since 2017, has annually honored projects that use culture to promote social and cultural equality and break down barriers to promote understanding among all people.

We are very pleased about this award, which enables us to take the first steps into our own museum space.

We also congratulate the other award winners!

This is what the jury wrote about us:

“This project, which is anti-educational in the best sense of the word, allows a variety of topics and voices to stand side by side with equal dignity and consistently follows the maxim: people are allowed to talk about themselves. With this basic idea, this special museum does not require classic curation, but is organized in the simultaneity of phenomena, topics and challenges that a diverse society faces. polyphony. “Is the principle in this groundbreaking approach, which exemplarily transfers the oral history tradition into contemporary cultural work.”

How do people deal with difficult times? Where do they get the strength to carry on? This year, Polyrama, the museum for life stories, is turning to a topic that is relevant not only in view of the current challenges. Strokes of fate, unforeseen events and twists and turns have always shaped human experiences. But existing social orders also shape the experiences of entire groups.

But how do individuals deal with war, violence, racism, exclusion, lack of prospects, loss and illness? What keeps them going? Where do they get hope from? The project is divided into two strands of action: We talk to adults who have had to deal with very difficult circumstances in their lives and focus on carrying on and surviving. E.g. subway drivers with experience of fatal accidents, people with war experience including retired soldiers/officers, people with experience of flight, people with experience of depression, people who have lost close family members to suicide, people in difficult working conditions, people who have been cast out from their family people who care for close relatives or who have been victims of serious reputational damage, etc. As part of a youth project that is supported by “Museum Macht Stark” and the Cultural Education Project Fund, young people talk to young people about loneliness, fear, fake friends, Pressure and other experiences.

The collected stories are all incorporated into our online archive, are “preserved”, indexed and made available for research purposes in the future. Selected stories serve as the basis for the development of an exhibition that enables the sources of hope and strength to be experienced spatially and sensually in immersive, walk-in room installations with sound and video collages, virtual and augmented reality. The inclusive, barrier-free installations are developed and implemented in collaboration with selected story owners and artists, programmers and virtual reality artists with and without disabilities.

If you would like to tell Polyrama your story, write to us: info(at)polyrama.de. 

What difficult phases of life have shaped your life? What helped you get through this? Where do you get the strength to keep going? This year, Polyrama is addressing a topic that is not only relevant in view of the current challenges. Strokes of fate, unforeseen events and twists and turns have always shaped human experiences. But existing social orders also shape the experiences of entire groups.

Arrange one appointment, if you want to tell your story!

Every Thursday, young people between the ages of 14 and 18 meet at Polyrama and work on building a collection of young perspectives on life. They conduct interviews, design exhibitions, develop games and visit other cultural locations.

polyrama - Museum for Life Stories has been collecting life experiences from Berliners since 2021. Young life experiences should also become visible at polyrama. We are looking for young people to build a collection of young life stories.

Are you between 14 and 18 years old?

Do you enjoy working creatively in the areas of storytelling, interviews, videos, music and podcasts?

Would you like to work with other young people from different backgrounds and backgrounds?

Would you like to have a say in how young perspectives from your generation and/or community are represented in a museum?

Then join in and build a museum collection with young people's perspectives on life!

The project starts on Tuesday, April 26th, 2022 at 5 p.m
SCHLOSS 19, children's and youth club, Schloßstr. 19, 14059 Berlin Charlottenburg,

Information meeting: If you have questions, come to an information meeting!

Tue, April 5th, 2022 at 5 p.m., Pangea-Haus, Trautenaustraße 5, 10717 Berlin

Accessibility: The Pangea House is barrier-free.

Online on Friday, April 8th. via zoom at 5 p.m.

Artists, projects and initiatives that deal with the lives of Berliners are guests at Polyrama at irregular intervals. Our first guest project is the online exhibition At Home by the BarLin collective in cooperation with Rete Donne e.V.

More about that here.

Schirin sells hummus for the first time in her life at a market stall and meets Esther, who, as an Israeli, is an expert on this dish. They get into a conversation about this, which includes stages in both of their lives.

You can read the whole story of Esther here.

Shirin Zareh grew up in Iran, which also shines through in the stories she reads in libraries and schools. She accompanies this vocally and with other instruments. In her readings she also presents her grandfather's self-translated travel diaries. Since March 2020, Schirin has been writing episodes of her biography that she would like to publish. She studied philosophy, German and theater studies at the Free University of Berlin and completed acting training with teachers at the Actors' Studio. She has been a self-employed singing teacher for over 25 years.

https://www.schirinz.de/Home/

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.

Fred Gehrig began his career as a dancer and choreographer in London. After six years working in Switzerland, France, and NYC, among others, he returned to London in 2000, where he completed his master's degree at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts. From 2006, Fred taught various interdisciplinary modules such as 'Performance Making' for ten years, including as a lecturer at the TrinityLaban Conservatory, London. His artistic activities range from his own productions to commissions such as zombie trainer for the film World War Z with Brad Pit, personal trainer for Juliette Binoche or appearances with Turner Prize winner Martin Creed. In 2017, Fred moved from Shanghai to Berlin to explore new worlds, such as studying 'Deaf Studies' at Humboldt University or caring for people with advanced Altzheimer's. After the hybrid prose 'Death in Shanghai', Fred has been writing his second book 'The Birch' since autumn 2023. In January 2022, Fred returned to the London stage for a year as an actor in the creation of 'The Burnt City', his fourth engagement with immersive theater company Punchdrunk.

https://www.punchdrunk.com

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.

Mizgina Rengin is a freelance singer, vocal artist and vocal coach from Berlin. She was born in Batman, Turkey and came to Germany when she was 19. From 2015 she worked in interdisciplinary performance art with Netzwerk X. Two years later she successfully completed her practice-oriented degree program “Music. World” at the University of Hildesheim. In addition to her solo performances, she also led music projects she initiated with young refugees and choir projects with refugee women and girls.

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.

Katie Lee Dunbar is a queer feminist performer and educator. Katie has over ten years of experience in anti-discriminatory educational work and the conception and implementation of artistic-educational projects in schools with a wide range of age groups. Katie's actions focus on empowerment and inclusion. Katie's research explores voice, memory, movement, sound, language and installation. The works are presented at festivals, exhibitions, non-profit organizations, theaters and in public spaces. Katie is currently project manager for mitkollektiv (July 2020 to July 2021) and leads the German department of arted (a 3-year trans-European project funded by ERASMUS) where guides and workshops are offered for artists and teachers. Topics critical of power and anti-racist strategies are taught here.

https://www.katieleedunbar.de

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.

It is a pantomimic performance without language, with musical elements. Homeless people or tramps are the people par excellence connected to the world of clowns. Alone, abandoned, with relationship problems, with survival problems. Trapped with no way out. This is Björn's story - disappointment, suffering, loneliness, submission, the desire for freedom, unfulfilled love. The Clown's Themes. But now Björn has disappeared overnight. Everything he had with him is suddenly gone. The lack and aloofness surrounding his story resonate more than the story itself.

Antonio Villella, a 45-year-old Italian, is an actor, director, theater teacher and clown. He has been working in the artistic field for more than 25 years and also enjoys working with other people in a team. He has already worked with dancers, acrobats and musicians and with people from different backgrounds who have fled for political reasons. Antonio has already created performances, worked on commissioned projects, done shows in museums and led a cultural club.

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.

The walk-in installation by Sadaf Farahani and Leonie Kock follows in Chrisoula's footsteps. Who was Chrisoula – the person, the woman, the Greek, the guest worker, the mother, the wife, the sister, the neighbor and the friend? How does a human life tell itself about the people who were close to you? And what does it reveal about the time and place in which it is embedded? What remains of us in the world when we are no longer physically present?

Sadaf Farahani is originally from Iran. There she studied film directing and worked as a photojournalist and filmmaker. She has lived in Germany for 10 years. Since then she has focused more on cultural work and has carried out various artistic and cultural projects. In her work, Sadaf is interested in topics such as diaspora, identity, migration and biographical work. In 2021, together with Anna Chrusciel, she founded Polyrama - Museum of Life Stories, which she considers her life project.

Leonie Kock is a freelance cultural worker in Berlin. After studying cultural anthropology in Hamburg and further training in analogue photography, she worked in various areas of community and cultural work. Here she developed her documentary debut “Faltenrock.” In the personal portrait about images of aging, dance, autonomy and social participation, she combines direction, production and camera work. In her further work she deals with different documentary formats, which also include animation and performance. She is currently developing a therapeutic focus through the Pantarei Approach bodywork training, which is incorporated into media education work, among other things.

Accessibility information: The performance is not barrier-free. We speak DGS at A2 level.

Because we speak/Let's promise each other/Because we speak/Are you silent/Because we speak/I am/Because we speak/I don't speak/Because we speak/Can you be/Because we speak/We are/Because we speak

'Because We Speak' is an abstraction of the story of Anush teaching people to speak. Words become danced images, completely without language, and form the labyrinth of their and perhaps all of our lives as pictorial development and decay, as construction, deconstruction and reconstruction.

Florian Hoffmeier is a cultural worker, doctor, artist and therapist. Many years of training and work in a variety of projects and project participation in the cultural, artistic and communicative areas. Since 2010, she has been working on her own artistic work using various media (dance theater, performance art, video, etc.). He also received many awards, grants and scholarships for his cultural and artistic activities. As a doctor, he has been working in the field of psychiatry/psychosomatics and psychotherapy for a long time.

Lotta Sandborgh works as a freelance dancer and choreographer in various projects and ensembles.

Vladimir Miller plays classical compositions in the avlos trio d’anches, is active in various jazz ensembles and composes music for film and television.

www.florianhoffmeier.de

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided. We speak DGS at A2 level.

The CL visual performance is a completely new art form in Germany. It has long been widespread in the USA. CL-Visual Performance is a performance with classifiers (English: classifiers, abbreviation "CL"). Classifiers are gestures in which the shape of the hand represents an object, a person or a part of the body and the other parameters of the gesture (hand position, place of execution and movement) show the true movement of the person being depicted. The performance is therefore very visual.

Pinky Aiello is a one woman show: she is a comedian, entertainer, sign poet, visual vernacular artist, unicyclist and juggler. She gives workshops and lectures on storytelling in sign language, teaches American Sign Language and works as a graphic designer. Pinky lives in Hamburg and is a proud sign language speaker.

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.

Anna Ehrenreich was born in Berlin and discovered her passion for dancing at an early age. She loves creating images, telling stories and touching people. Since working with a trapeze for the first time in 2005, she has been particularly interested in aerial acrobatics. Anna Ehrenreich attended, among other things, the Etage School for the Performing Arts in Berlin. For over ten years she has been performing artistic performances on the dance trapeze, vertical cloth and multicordes, combining her dancing and artistic skills.

https://www.anna-ehrenreich-luftartistik.de

Accessibility information: This is a non-language piece with musical accompaniment. Audio description is not offered.

Lotti Seebeck as an artist is particularly interested in cross-disciplinary collaborations and performative research. Her work is about feminist, sustainable and queer perspectives and their public-private entanglement. She studied cultural studies in Hildesheim and London and is currently studying fine art and art in context at the UDK Berlin.

Silja Korn was the first blind educator in Germany. When she lost her eyesight at the age of 13, a lot changed, but not for Silja herself, as she discovered over a long journey. She is still an active artist today - she paints and a selection of her pictures hang in the permanent exhibition in the Blind Friends guesthouse in Berlin Kladow.

https://lottis.persona.co

http://siljakorn.de/index.shtml

Accessibility information: Audio description (non-professional) is provided.