raum fur freiraum
spatial intervention during a residency at lichtenberg studios, berlin
2025
When I arrived in Lichtenberg, there was still a thick layer of ice covering the pavements. Over the course of a week it gradually melted away, making place for a springtime feeling: a different smell entered the air and the chittering of excited birds would become a daily soundtrack while I conducted my walks.
On one of these walks, zigzagging in between the apartment buildings of the grid-like patterned Neu-Hohenschönhausen, I passed a street where the uniformity was interrupted by a series of bird houses hanging in the trees.
The sight of these different multi-colored small houses in contraposition with these high-rise grey flats inspired me to make a birdhouse myself.
Together with Alec De Bruyn we constructed a miniature replica of the building where Lichtenberg Studios is located, including the slogan “Raum fur Freiraum” that is prominently visible on the façade. I interpret this slogan as a call to spare the disappearing “free spaces” in Berlin, that since the fall of the wall has been known for its spaces in between.
Carrying the birdhouse on my back like a portable home, we walked from the location of the studio to stadtpark Lichtenberg, where the birdhouse was put in a tree on 03/03/’25, around 11h.
I went by on 4 separate occasions afterwards to check if the birdhouse was still there, and the last time I visited on 15/03 it still was.
I hope the birds appreciated my appeal for affordable housing and have moved in by now, free of cost.
Video & Intervention in cooperation with Alec De Bruyn
