In the 1990s, bands, intellectuals, and antifascist activists joined forces as Wohlfahrtsausschüsse (“welfare committees”). United by the attempt to defend antiauthoritarian ways of life in Rostock, Dresden, and Leipzig against farright scenes, participants discuss what can be learned from this history and where we stand today.

In German, free admission; the event will also be livestreamed

The event is a cooperation with taz.

Participants

The ://about blank opened in Berlin in 2010 as a techno club and cultural center with a left-wing ethos. It defines itself as a place where music, raves, and partying come together with a solidarity-based economy, criticism of capitalism, feminism, and climate justice, as well as the fight against racism, anti-Semitism, and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community.

Since 1991, Conne Island has been a social hub for politics and culture. It is a venue for music without genre boundaries—hardcore, punk, and metal concerts are just as much a part of it as hip-hop, techno, and dubstep, as well as the “Hamburger Schule” and pop, in both the narrow and broad senses. At the same time, Conne Island is a political hub where debates rage over social criticism, left-wing perspectives, and the possibilities of political culture.

Isabelle Graw (lives in Berlin) is a professor of art history and art theory at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste – Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main. She founded Texte zur Kunst in 1990 with Stefan Germer (†) and co-edited and conceptualized 141 issues so far. In 2003 she co-founded the Institut für Kunstkritik at the Städelschule with Daniel Birnbaum. Current research areas: The Value of Art, Friendship in dark times, judgment and value-creation under new forms of capitalim, Trace and Agency in Painting. Publications include: Die bessere Hälfte. Künstlerinnen des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts (Cologne: Dumont, 2003), High Price. Art Between The Market and Celebrity Culture (New York: Lukas & Sternberg, 2010), Texte zur Kunst. Essays, Rezensionen, Gespräche (Hamburg: Philo Fine Arts, 2011), Where Are We Now? (Berlin: Jarla Partilager, 2015), The Love of Painting. Genealogy of A Success-Medium (Berlin: Sternberg-Press, 2018), In Another World. Notes 2014–2017 (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2020), Three Cases of Value Reflection Ponge, Whitten, Banksy (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2020), On The Benefits of Friendship (London: Sternberg Press, 2023), Fear And Money (London: Sternberg Press, 2025)

Schorsch Kamerun (b. 1963 in Timmendorfer Strand / Germany) is a founding member and singer of the Hamburg-based political punk band Die Goldenen Zitronen. Together with Rocko Schamoni, he opened the Golden Pudel Club in Hamburg-St. Pauli, and starting in 1997, they hosted the 3SAT late-night show Pudel Overnight. Since 2000, he has worked as a theater and opera director, mostly staging his own socio-political plays at major theaters and festivals such as the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, the Volksbühne Berlin, and the Vienna Festival. In 2007, he received the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden (War Blinded Audio Play Prize) for his WDR radio play Ein Menschenbild, das in seiner Summe Null ergibt. In the winter semester of 2010/2011, he held a visiting professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. His debut novel, Youth Is the Most Beautiful Time of Life, was published by Ullstein, Berlin, in 2016. In 2024, he celebrated “40 Years of Die Goldenen Zitronen” with a tour, in 2026 he developed a walk-through concert installation for the Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg.

Dr. Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk(b. 1967 in East Berlin) was not able to study history at Humboldt University until after the fall of the GDR. He has been a member of the Independent Historians’ Association since 1990, from 1995 to 1998, he served on the Enquete Commission Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unification, and from 1998 to 2000, he worked for the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Germany. Kowalczuk, who most recently published a two-volume biography of Walter Ulbricht, is one of Germany’s most renowned experts on the history of the GDR and communism.

Masha Qrella (b. 1975 in East Berlin) is a singer, musician, composer, and producer. Since the 1990s, she has shaped the German music scene with her unique blend of indie pop, electronic, and experimental music. She co-founded the Berlin-based instrumental bands Mina and Contriva before launching her solo career as a songwriter in 2002 with Luck. Since then, she has released numerous albums both as a solo artist and as part of a collective and has toured internationally. In addition to her solo work, she regularly composes for theater, film, and radio drama productions. With her 2021 album Woanders, on which she set texts by the writer Thomas Brasch to music, she created a highly acclaimed work at the intersection of literature, music, and performance—“one of the most important explorations of identity in German-language pop” (Musikexpress). In 2025, she was honored as Best Live Act at the VUT Awards presented by the Association of Independent Musicians and Music Companies.

Projections Onto the East is a project by n.b.k. in cooperation with the Schinkel Pavillon, conceived by Fabian Bechtle and Leon Kahane.
Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).
Funded by the Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).