In 2015, KUNSTASYL was founded by barbara caveng and subsequently created in a team with Aymen Montasser | Therry Kornath | Till Rimmele | Dachil Sado | Maxim Neroda and the inhabitants of the residential home Staakener Straße Berlin as well as its then director Gordon Grunwald.
On the KUNSTASYL website one could – and still can – follow the life, acting and performing of KUNSTASYL since its foundation on February 24, 2015. Bit by bit, the rooms filled up, inviting everyone to meet the people who were seeking shelter in Berlin between 2014 – 2017.
Since 2015 KUNSTASYL, the initiative of artists, creative minds, residents and itinerants, conquers physical and social space. Concepts and strategies had been developed in cooperation with locals and itinerants by employing art as catalyst, transforming provisional arrival into integrated residence. KUNSTASYL asks how existing political and social structures can be changed, added onto and extended in favor of a more divers society.
It was intended to create visibility for the shelter and its residents by utilizing artistic performance and interventions as well as enhance the internal/ external communication. For a period of over 14 months the HEIM (Shelter) was turned into a performative place; it became living space, workshop and stage, opening up to the outside. KUNSTASYL generated a collective identity, overcoming boundaries of nation, religion and ethnicity.
In 2016/17, based on the collective experience and multitude of trained artistic expressions, the KUNSTASYL-Community developed in collaboration with the MEK Museum of European Cultures Berlin the exhibition project: “daHEIM: Einsichten in flüchtige Leben” (daHEIM:glances into fugitive lifes”) was realised in a four-month open workshop process.
At 1st of July 2017 KUNSTASYL gave its goodbye to the MEK as THE KINGS. The exhibition area, the foyer and the garden of the museum were turned into the stage of UTC 7 HOURS PARALLEL PERFORMANCES, a long days ride from 1pm to 8pm with thirty performers, artists, experts of any profession, students, residents and itinerants.
In autumn 2017 the performance group DIE KOMPANIE was founded by fourteen members of THE KINGS.
The basic outfitters focus on the fundamental aesthetic needs of every human being.
Since 2015 KUNSTASYL, residents and institutions on local, communal, national and international levels created diverse cooperations. KUNSTASYL performs in conferences and on symposia, participates in exhibitions and develops various formats of interventions and workshops.