A farewell to arms

Peace is one of the great Christmas cliches. It’s a word that’s scattered across greetings cards like so much glitter. But there is a reason for cliches: they contain a glimmer of truth. To find deep peace within and without can be hardest fight of all. This year we worked with many people who had come through conflicts, either wars, or deep internal strife. Often, the two are linked.

(Translation, from German/Arabic) MIGRATION OF WHALES = MIGRATION OF PEOPLE / BUT WE CANNOT RETURN TO OUR SUMMER HOMES

Phil’s project in Berlin was with a refugee community. He ran several months of artmaking workshops with children. The artworks were made then shown to adults in their community, whose responses became the text of the posters: short, poignant poetic statements, counting the human cost of war, subtle losses including childhood itself.

This exhibition of poster-poems opened in October, at Paul Schneider Hause in Spandau, Berlin. The exhibition proved popular and was extended until the end of December, when we are delighted to say it was awarded a commendation by the mayor of Spandau, on behalf of the city of Berlin.

Meanwhile, Lois led our Armour project in the UK using words and stitches to explore the ways we protect ourselves. It was a collaboration with veterans of armed conflict and with people who have lived experience of homelessness. We asked people to describe their personal "armour", physical and mental. The final textile artworks were inspired by gambesons, the quilted jackets worn under suits of armour, which we made out of rust dyed fabric, embroidered with poems, and other writings. These stitched pieces echoed armour and more subtly alluded to healing, the stitching of wounds.

We would like to offer our thanks to everyone who met us, talked with us, worked with us, laughed with us, helped us over the last year. We wish you respite, safety, happiness. And peace, peace, peace.

HOUSE WITHOUT WALLS - Berlin exhibition

MIGRATION OF WHALES = MIGRATION OF PEOPLE /
BUT WE CANNOT RETURN TO OUR SUMMER HOMES

HOUSE WITHOUT WALLS (EIN ZUHAUSE OHNE WÄNDE)

Press Release

House without Walls is an exhibition of drawings by refugee children in Berlin, made with British visual poet Philip Davenport, from arthur+martha. The exhibition opens 13 October, at Paul-Schneider-Haus in Spandau, Berlin, and continues until 23 November (Mon-Fri 10-6).

The drawings show a child's everyday, but with the sharpness of war punching through. A policeman with a truncheon hides in one corner of 'A normal day'. A mother walks through a field equally divided between trees and explosions. Several of the drawings have been made into "poster poems", with responses from parents and adults in their community incorporated into the designs.

The poster poems, made in collaboration with Syrian designer Deya Nemo, are a gentle, sideways look at the human cost of war, the subtle losses, including childhood itself. The text layers three languages together: Arabic, German and English, a diverse echoing of voices. The naivety of the drawings contrast with the questioning of adults. Sharp and cynical, though still child-like, these conversation pieces between children and adults continually ask: where are we now?

Exhibition poster

Davenport's workshops took place in the busy corridor of the Staakener Strasse asylum seekers' shelter in Spandau, Berlin. He directed weekly sessions, over a period of 6 months, getting the children’s energy down on paper, an act of creation and of release. They attacked the paper on occasions. One boy had such shaky hands that his drawings were almost those of an old man.

Davenport describes the workshops: "A blast of energy, full of delight, mischief - but a certain brittleness too. As I slowly got to know the children I began to understand the cost of the epic life journey they'd taken, to reach safety here in Berlin..."

Davenport also interviewed many older members of the community at Staakener Strasse, weaving their thoughts into the work. The interviews and a diary of the project are at this link. 

The 21st-century is a time of instability. Political change, climate change, economic change, bring unprecedented human movement. But some of the most sensitive witnesses have not been consulted...

Funded by The British Council/Arts Council England.

Supported by Paul Schneider Haus, Gemeinwesenverein Haselhorst e.V., EFRE, Gemeinschaftsunterkunft Staakener Straße, Spandau, Berlin, arthur+martha U.K. 

Translations by Deya Nemo, Lisa Langer and Aurelie Maurin.  

Thanks to all at Gemeinschaftsunterkunft Staakener Straße, Barbara Caveng and Dachil Sado at Kunstasyl, Wiebke Ehrenstein at Paul-Schneider-Haus, Elke Ritt at The British Council in Berlin, and poets Alistair Noon, Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour.

An arthur+martha international outreach project.

I am one animal

Human, by Fatima. Berlin 2017

The arthur+martha international outreach project Heaven-Proof House is a collaboration with refugees in Berlin, devised by Phil. It is supported by the British Council/Arts Council England.

Phil writes:

I am getting ready to go back to Berlin, and my thoughts are turning to the many good people I met there and the friends I made over the last year, during HEAVEN-PROOF HOUSE. One of the last interviews I made in Berlin was on a scorchingly hot day, in a huge hostel at the edge of the city. In a subtle way, it broke my heart to hear this story. Nasir is angry and sad, and tries desperately to find something good in a bad situation. This isn't a war story, its about what comes after a war you've had to flee, the nuts and bolts of being completely dispossessed, of home, of self-worth, even of language. And starting again...

Nasir:

First I want to say there are many, many good things about Germany and we have been shown much kindness. But you ask me if this is home.

Home? Hier ist alle leuter. In one small room sleep six people. Plates dirty. We have 20% people sick, don't want to eat this... stuff. All is shit. Some people have been here more than two years. La Giz say we don't have da heim for you. All of us need psychologist, psychiatrist. No one here feels good.

People need work, here there is nothing. Essen, schlafen. Deutsch for two or three hours in the day. Open the book. Nothing else to do. But we don't speak good Deutsch because we don't meet German people so we can't learn. The important thing is to listen to the sound. We make friends, but we can't invite them here. No visitors, no besuchen. Here we speak Arabische, Farsi. 

I'm from Afghanistan and I have seen many things. But in my life, I've not seen this before. Hundreds of people in one place, six people sleeping in one room. The rooms are dirty, the toilets all dirty.

When I eat this food, I have a pain in my stomach. What am I to do?

I have been three years in Germany, nine months in this place. I know people who have been here over two years. It makes you crazy. My heart is sick with this. We go to which way? I think we will not find a nice way. This is not Europe, this is not democracy, this is a jail for me. For three years, four years, five years live here, inside this camp? At start all is ok. But I see my friends change, their voices get loud, talk not nice. All this pressure. 

We come to be strong in Germany. We don't want to be on La Giz. I want to go to a job, I want to pay my life. This is so hard until we learn German. 

When you come here at night time, after 11pm you will see something different. In sleep time is a bad smell. We have nowhere to put our shoes, our sandals, so they stink. After two or threee hours, boys come here in the big room and they play games on their phones. You see them lie on the benches out here. I ask them why and they say, "It smell so bad, I'm not sleeping."

I have a sickness. The important thing is doctor  is not one nice place to be a sick person. I have three doctor papers, they say I need to go somewhere different. But the social say no, if you want to go somewhere different go back to your own country. They say they don't have no other place. They tell me, "This is not my job. Go and speak with Merkel."

I see how they look in their eyes. I think I am one animal. We need a chance, a chance to do something good. Something strong here in Germany, to help them and show them. But we don't have one chance.

In Afghanistan we have people with no house, no money, begging. "Give me one Euro!" This is the same. What can I say? I sleep in da heim and the Giz pay for me? I go to a party and people ask me what I do. What can I tell them? I live off your taxes? 

I have been nine months in here...

Nasir

Interviewed by Philip Davenport

Berlin, 2017

A sense of place

Booth Centre and arthur+martha group, photo courtesy of Jack Silverstone

'The role of the Outsider is to speak out.' Jack Silverstone

We started our Armour field trip with a visit to The Lowry for the exhibition Home 1947,  a new work by Sharlene Obaid-Chinoy, reflections on the Partition of British India. Through short documentary and drama films Home 1947, shows us this world not through the words of historians and politicians, but through the eyes of those who lived through it. Such parallels to our project 'The Homeless Library.' 'Home, a sense of being, a sense of place...'


Throughout the day the group wrote poems, as a way of focussing their minds on the experiences and distilling deep-felt reactions into words. But the process of writing itself brought up issues for many. One person described themselves as illiterate; dictating lines of poems to be written down by a 'scribe' was a powerful experience, a disturbing luxury. To be allowed onto paper, to be acknowledged after so long! It's a delight that can bring pain. Another group member told us that they'd never been praised, so to suddenly be told that a piece of writing was good was far more challenging than the usual round of expected abuse.  

Visiting the exhibition with the group from The Booth Centre, gave us insights into both this exhibition and the afternoon visit to the Imperial War Museum North. Together we form a group from disparate backgrounds, cultures, ages, genders, many of whom have experienced or who are still experiencing rough sleeping, life on the margins. But this time the conversation and tears shed, were directed at the trauma of the other people, the refugees fleeing across the Indian sub-continent in the largest ever human mass migration. Or meeting and conversing with David, a World War 2 veteran who'd fought at Juno Beach during D-Day, and then in the vicious Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, at the IWMN.

Phil, Georgina and Peggy, watching film projection at IWMN

David described fighting for his life against hostile forces, and the elements. Our group listening to him nodded their heads; many of them have faced those things over and over again.

'I don't know why people ignore us. The homeless see everything. Even the police come to us for information. They understand they need our help. We've seen it all.' Ian

The poems that we worked on were love poems to weapons. They're strong pieces of writing, but what also exists in these pieces, and at times overwhelms the words on the page, is the story between the lines.

A big thank you to... Danielle Garcia at IWMN for arranging our afternoon, to Mathew for sharing his wonderful knowledges and patiently answering all our questions and most of all to David, the World War 2 veteran, who brought the conflict and aftermath alive.

Lois Blackburn and Philip Davenport



  

We came with no names, but we leave as kings. Pt 2

Princess, by Fatima. Berlin 2017

On the invitation of Kunstasyl arts organisation, Phil visited one of the largest refugee hostels in Berlin. In the second of this two-part blog he speaks with members of Kunstasyl, artists Barbara Caveng and Charlotte Danoy-Kent.

Phil:

I'm in a vast room, the core of an asylum seekers’ centre at Mertensstrasse, in Berlin. In the midst of this colossal space is a small stage and on the stage, a tent is being made by the Kunstasyl arts organisation. It's the beginning of their new project Kings. It's the early stages and the possibilities are as big as this room and the many human beings within it. 

I see the unmistakable flame-red hair of Barbara, the artist who devised Kunstasyl, and walk over to greet her. She has given me advice and introductions at crucial stages in my project in Berlin. At moments when she’s most needed, Barbara seems to appear. Her work with people who've had to flee from war began with the escalating violence in the Middle East, but she’s been making collaborative art projects for a much longer time.

Barbara: "Since 2003, I have worked with individuals making projects that ask a question. Not necessarily about a problem, just a question. Asking a good question, that is the art! I’d been doing a residency in Syria, talking to people, asking questions. When war started in Syria one and a half years later, suddenly people I'd been talking to over there were standing here in Berlin. So I started asking questions again.” 

The result was the remarkable exhibition Da Heim: Glimpses into Fugitive Lives, at the Europaischer Museum in Berlin. One of the most emotionally affecting exhibitions I've ever witnessed, a beautiful gesture of communal making which contradicts the fear, judgement, aggression that often meet the word “refugee”.

“A society is not just something we live inside, but something we can change. That is a big question, right there. I don't know if European society can make a change. If you see the project at Spandau, which created the exhibition, as an experiment with 100 people, then you can say it was successful. But how much energy and skill was focussed in that small space! What would happen if we did the same thing with a million people? Thats what needs to happen. But I don't have answers, just questions. Take my work as an experiment, not a recipe.”

I talk awhile with Charlotte who is helping to develop Kings, the next phase of the project. Kings will be a performance that uses the exhibition as a backdrop. Charlotte is busying on the plans for a group structure based on the pyramid of human needs. As we talk about the piece, people come and go, asking her for guidance, or simply what's going on. She answers them all with good humour and infectious enthusiasm for the work. Her intense focus on the process of making draws people to her, they're intrigued. She explains: the tent structure will become a metaphor for survival - and for what is needed in our lives beyond survival. 

I help for a little while, asking residents for their thoughts on the nature of kingship. One man discusses this with his group of friends, in Arabic. "We have decided," he says at last to me in English. The others nod at him, and he tells me: "Every king is only a poor servant of god." 

As I say good bye, Barbara waves me over. “You know, the exhibition at the museum has been a big success. But we have to build on that. We mustn't just leave it, we need to add life to it, performance. We came with no names but we leave as kings…”

Heaven-Proof House is a poetry project based in Berlin, devised by Philip Davenport from arthur+martha CIC and supported by the British Council and Arts Council England. The project continues the arthur+martha strand of international work with marginalised communities, connecting people across economic, social and physical boundaries. 

Berliner Stadmission run the Mertensstrasse building described here. Many thanks to Kunstasyl, Carlo Schenk, Berliner Stadmission.

We came with no name, but we leave as kings. Pt 1

Das Boot, by Ivan. Berlin, 2017

On the invitation of Kunstasyl arts organisation, Phil visited one of the largest refugee hostels in Berlin. In this two-part blog he goes on a walk-through of the building, and speaks with members of Kunstasyl, artists Barbara Caveng and Charlotte Danoy-Kent.

Phil: 

I'm inside of one of the biggest rooms I've ever entered. The word "inside" feels inappropriate for this space, which is the size of a football pitch. A big football pitch. The walls are springtime colours, crisp yellow, greens, and some sky blue. Day filters through ceiling skylights. It's the ground floor of a repurposed factory, now home to a whole community of people who've had to flee from war and leave their homes, to find temporary refuge here in Spandau, in Berlin. 

My guide around the building is Carlo Schenk, an intern who is studying social sciences. I must look overwhelmed because Carlo smiles at my expression. "Huge isn't it? The first time I came here it looked unbelievable to me. Even now, after working two weeks here, it still looks too big. This open place is the shared area, over there are the tables and the kitchens, then there are smaller areas like the kindergarten and the workshops at the edge."

We walk around, and Carlo points out things of interest, but it's impossible to focus. Continual human voices roll across the space like waves. Children's voices, high pitched and excited as they play, men chatting at tables, or in the barber shop, a woman scolding her kid, all of them echoing together. Enough dining tables to serve hundreds of people. There's a big gleaming metal kitchen at one end of the room, a corner has been fenced off for a kindergarten, another space is a gym, another is a textile studio. At the far end, rows of planters containing palm trees and wooden benches, made by occupants of this "heim". People stroll back and forth, as if they're in a park. 

"The barber shop is great isn't it? People socialise there, it's a really important part of Middle Eastern culture and most here are from the Middle East. We wish we could get more people cooking in the kitchens because cooking is important as well, but right now it's just too difficult to organise more than three families at once."

Next to the big hall are the sleeping rooms, another vast space divided into a grid of high-walled rooms with no ceilings, each sleeping six people. Carlo knocks on the wall of one of the shared sleeping rooms, where he knows the occupant, but no one is in. I peep briefly into the room, a stark box of stacked bunk beds.

We go briefly upstairs to look at the offices and quiet area. At every entrance or exit point is a security guard. Why is that? "To keep everybody safe, from outside and from each other. People have to sleep here so they must feel safe. There's got to be rules and they've got to be kept to. People have to feel secure and respected."

Carlo is researching the experience of LGBT refugees at the moment. "People who are lesbian or gay are in danger of experiencing the same prejudice in some refugee communities as they did at home. The same pressures that meant they had to leave might be here as well..."

We return to the gigantic hall on the ground floor. It's a big, big, big gathering point, like an airport or a stadium, where people shrink to little miniatures on the horizon of the room. A place where you might suspend ordinary life, hoping to return to it in an unspecified future. A place where you might lose yourself for awhile.

Heaven-Proof House is a poetry project based in Berlin, devised by Philip Davenport from arthur+martha CIC and supported by the British Council and Arts Council England. The project continues the arthur+martha strand of international work with marginalised communities, connecting people across borders and boundaries. 

Berliner Stadmission is a social organisation with a Christian background, helping people in need. The Mertensstrasse building described here is currently being extended to take more people. Many thanks to Kunstasyl, Carlo Schenk, Berliner Stadmission.

SaveSave

A very important question

Blumen-Menschen by Marwa. Berlin 2016

Heaven-Proof House is a poetry project based in Berlin, devised by Philip Davenport from arthur+martha CIC and supported by the British Council and Arts Council England. The project continues the arthur+martha strand of international work with marginalised communities, connecting people across borders and boundaries. 

Phil writes:

I arrive at the asylum centre and a set of small obstacles defeat me. I want to meet someone to discuss an interview, but he isn't around. I need a table and chairs for making artwork with the kids, at my post in the corridor, by the security man. But Klaus the technical man is not around. Mohammed the security guy would normally help, but he also isn't around. He's translating a conversation for somebody who has a job centre interview. All of these small hiccups are made clumsier and bigger by my lack of language. I have no Arabic and am learning German, which refuses to stick in my head. 

So I go upstairs to see The Old Man, Karim. He's a frequent port of call and welcomes me into his room cheerily as he always does. He speaks good English and humours me by teaching me a few words in Arabic. We have talked about his journey from Iraq, paying human traffickers for the privilege of a grim boat journey. But we haven't talked about why he left. Once I've been settled into a chair and Karim has made sure I'm comfortable, he stares directly into my eyes and asks the uncomfortable question.

Karim:

There is another question you should ask about why I leave my country. This is a very important question. When anybody leaves their country there is a reason. Why? For me, I was arrested there in Iraq for more than 35 days. We have been kidnapped by militia which worked with government because we is Sunni person and you know the militia is Shia. 

I was officer in the Saddam regime. For this reason they take us to the prison, to the prison. In such vehicles as civilians use. They come near my place where I lived and open door by very bad manner. They hit me in my head and said: "Don't move, don't rise your head."

They take us to the places where they work, near the government, The Ministry of Internal Affairs. I very frighten when I remember the bad situation. They have ability to kill and maybe throw body garbage. Nothing do, just obey them.

35 days in a prison, in a room. Without ventilation, without cooler, electricity cutting more than 10 hours. In my opinion, someone wrote to them about me, the intelligence secret person. In Iraq it was famous for this manner. One person in room with me, a young man. What was he accused, I don't know. He was hitten. Them hitting his leg and his head. His leg had bleeding, I don't know why they did this. I don't why, but you cannot speak them. Cannot whisper them. "Don't speak, don't whisper," the guard said. That is right, silence.

They don't give medicine to me, I was afraid for my son bringing it. After I go out the bad jail.

After stay in prison they make report, total information, where we live where we work. In my opinion the informations don't reach for anything. Nobody speak about me, no guilty. In my opinion I am arrested because I was officer in Saddam regime and I am Sunni. In the last days, they spoke to me. They said, "Mister you will go to your family. You have done nothing and we are sorry." 

But what did they do? They have many cars there for police, civilian cars. They said, "OK, we shall arrive you to your home." I said I don't believe they let me go. Me and four guards go in the civilian car. They laugh. They say: "We shall not arrive in your house." They left me in the different place. They know my eyes not good. I cannot cross street, cannot see. I try to catch taxi, but they do not stop. No one stop for me, they are too scared. But at last, God's wish it was, somebody picked me up and returned me to my family.

If you stay in such country, maybe another time they not arrest you, they kill you.

Kingmaker

Konig, by Anonymous. Berlin, 2017.

The arthur+martha international outreach project Heaven-Proof House is a collaboration with refugees in Berlin, devised by Phil. The project is based at an asylum seekers' centre, where residents have kindly granted interviews, made poems and artworks. The artwork above, like most artworks for this project, is by a child who is resident at the centre. 

Phil:

The artwork for my project in Berlin has been made in a narrow corridor which is the entrance way to the Berlin refugee hostel in Spandau, where I'm based. Every week, I put out my stall, which is a rickety wooden table and two or three chairs. On the table are placed pens, pencils, ink and a heap of paper. 

Within a few minutes I have usually been joined by seven or eight kids who launched themselves at the art materials with formidable energy. Technically, they are children, but their life experience has taken them far beyond the worldliness of many adults. They have come out of the war zones of the world. 

This is a quiet afternoon. Most of the kids have gone on a trip. But M, one regular member of the art gang, has been left behind so she sits down and lords it over the table. She splashes some ink around and experiments with a geometry compass. As she works, we talk. I have rudimentary German, which she mocks gleefully. "Dumkopf!" She also has a tiny amount of Arabic, she names a few of the creatures she's drawing in amusing combinations of the two languages. 

Although she's full of jokiness, M has a dark cloud hanging around her, like a familiar. If anyone crosses her for any reason, real or imagined, she summons a ferocious glare. And follows it with a stream of abuse. She can be disruptive to an impressive degree, or delightful. But it is only ever her who decides which.

Today after 20 minutes or so, just as she is running out of energy, two new arrivals join us. They are new to the art group and new to the hostel as well. They look very tiny and very frightened, like shy animals. They are intrigued by the paper and the pens and by the possibility that they also could play. They are a brother and sister, perhaps four or five years old. I hope M won't be too vigorous with them.

The girl very quietly and uncertainly begins to draw. Her little brother stares at the white page. M jumps in with ruthless enthusiasm, she points to the picture and gives it a thumbs up. "Ja! Das ist gut!" And then hoots with manic laughter. The two new arrivals don't know what to make of her, but sense she is friendly. M makes an "accidental" ink spillage to amuse them, smirking as I mop it away. The little boy tentatively reaches out towards the paper and draws a single line. M larks about a bit more, stamping up and down the corridor and making fun of the security guard. 

The boy looks at his paper awhile and adds another line. As I watch him slowly constructing this drawing, I realise that his hands are shaking. The drawing grows, the progress somehow fuelled by M's antics. Her boldness gives the two new kids a bit of shared bravery. The little boy with shaking hands is slowly becoming lost in his artwork, a picture of a king. Perhaps this is the first drawing he has made since his arrival here, since reaching safety. His expression is faraway, distracted. His sister smiles at him. 

M nods with satisfaction, as if she knew this would happen all along. 


Heaven-Proof House is funded by Arts Council England and the British Council. Advice and support has been given by the Kunstasyl arts organisation.

Walking From the War Zone

Person, by Kinan. Berlin, 2016

The arthur+martha international outreach project Heaven-Proof House is a collaboration with refugees in Berlin, devised by Phil. The project is based at an asylum seekers' centre in Spandau, where residents have kindly granted interviews, made poems and artworks. The artwork above, like most artworks for this project, is by a child at the centre. 

"She is walking from home right now, at this very moment. She is walking with our one-year-old child from Aleppo to Turkey. She's travelling by herself, walking away from the war zone. She has a cheap mobile phone but the signal is bad. Sometimes all trace of her will disappear. To cross the border she will need to pay the human traffickers 1500 euros. But when they get to the final crossing point she and the child must go alone."

Said is telling us this. He peers over the top of his glasses like an old-fashioned librarian. His remarkable eyes are a deep brown and they are full of worry. It is impossible to escape the gravity of those eyes. He is perhaps 40 years old, but seems far older. His room in the asylum seekers' centre is impeccably clean. The last occupant was ill and had left it dirty, but now it is renovated to a bright spotlessness. There is a large photograph of a dew-covered rose on the wall, a bed, table and chairs, a television in one corner. 

We are in "da heim" in Spandau, Berlin. Said's wife is hundreds of miles and two borders away. He explains the situation, in a mix of Arabic and German, to Barbara, Aymen and myself. Barbara and Aymen then pass it onto me in English fragments. 

But however much Said explains, I cannot seem to fully understand. This is not about a failure of language it is about failure of experience. Some things need to be lived to be understood. This is a little of what I've written in my notebook:

His wife

Left Aleppo today, mit kleine

By foss

(Mimes action of walking with fingers)

By foot. You understand?

Left Aleppo today, they walk. 1 years old boy. His wife.

Walk to Turkey. 

Because she has appointment with Embassy

But they won't let her go through

No other way

In ein gruppe? Nein.

No. She's not walking in a group

Only with her baby.

The only chance she has

To find her way is to go through quietly

(Shows route on mobile phone, google map 

Near a forest, near a border)

She has no papers. If she gets through, it just depends on the day. 

This is the only chance.

Said now shows us a phone photo of his tiny daughter. She too has fantastic, intense eyes. All of us grouped around the camera give an involuntary gasp. Said says: "The waiting time kills you. You wait, you waste time and wait."

I say that he is a very gracious host. In his shoes, in his situation I doubt I would be as calm, or considerate. He looks at me, thoughtfully and replies: "When you don't have another option, you have to wait."

Interview with Philip Davenport, Berlin
Translation, Aymen Montasser

Selfie with pink wall

From left: Aymen, Charlotte, Yasir on the occasion of Yasir's first birthday

The arthur+martha international outreach project Heaven-Proof House is a collaboration with refugees in Berlin, devised by Phil. The project is based at an asylum seekers' centre in Spandau, where residents have kindly granted interviews, made poems and artworks. The artworks below were made by children at the centre, "da heim". 

My time in Berlin is built around meeting people and sharing conversations. Today I'm going to be introduced to Yasir. He has come from Iraq and is remaking his life, after escaping prison and torture.

The introduction is made by Aymen, who is kind enough to act as translator. Aymen and Charlotte both work with the Kunstasyl arts organisation and they want to give Yasir a small birthday party, to which I'm also invited. "He's not celebrated a birthday before, it's not traditional in Iraq. But I think it's important, embracing existence. Some of my favourite days in this place have been birthdays."

Yasir is a man whose warmth and humour shine. Everyone looks happy when they talk with him, or about him. But he's been badly hurt and there's also a delicacy in our conversation, we tread carefully. Much of the communication is eye contact, a smile.

Hearts, by Eva. Berlin, 2016

Aymen is an excellent Master of Ceremonies: "This is the first cake of the first birthday of Yasir," he announces happily. "It is also my birthday - ah, the people of December are special people! Today we don't talk of Mosul, because we want a nice day. I.S. is in there now. It's a difficult time. Sister, mother, father of Yasir, they are there but he has no contact. He hopes they are secure, but never knows if everything is alright."

This fact hangs in the air. We eat instead of discussing it further. The "cake" that Charlotte has made for this occasion is a wondrous fruit crumble. We crunch sugary mouthfuls. The apple and pear are soft and tangy. It is studded with coloured candles. This is the food of my childhood, a taste of home. Yasir crunches happily on the sugary concoction, he has a sweet tooth.

He says: "Next year when I have anniversary I will celebrate. You will all be invited. It will be a very big celebration."

I ask how to make new beginnings. Aymen says, "He was forced to leave his home country, to come here. He can never come back to Iraq. He is forced to live, learn, survive here..."

We pause to take some photos. Charlotte larks about as the pictures are taken and Yasir hoots with laughter. "He says: it's the day to start a new life, it's nice to be reborn. He has had a bad, bad time in Iraq. Now he is healing, is with therapist. But always he has the sense of humour."

Yasir, translated by Aymen: "I start again here. I want to get residence. Took a course in the language school for 600 hours... I'm a professional embroiderer, a stitcher. Embroidering with machines in the old city of Mosul, traditional things. And army badges. Learned this trade in Mosul though have no piece of paper for it, no diploma. But I have found love already!"

Aymen breaks off from translating to add some details: "His girlfriend speaks my dialect. He wants to go to Tunisia to be with her they met on Facebook, they play games and talk talk talk. Beautiful."

Charlotte says: "Love is the most important thing of all. It is power. It is what makes home. It is what makes you."

I ask Yasir what the best moment in his life has been. Aymen shakes his sadly head as he translates Yasir: "It is not easy to say what is the best thing, because I was born in 1986 and I live only in war in Iraq. I was living with my parents, I was the only child of my parents. Eating together, playing together. Until 2003 it was okay: working, coming back home to a simple life. From 2003 until now it was really bad. 

"These days in Germany are good. Here is normal people, no extremist. There everything is extreme. If one wants coffee and one wants tea they start different sides and oppose each other. This is why everything is extreme in Iraq."

Charlotte again: "For us who live our life in Western Europe, we can't really talk about war. But when somebody like Yasir describes this, you listen. When you are European you don't know about war and when it's discussed you feel like you're judging something you don't understand. It's a relief when someone speaks the reality."

My final question is to ask Yasir what makes home. Yasir: "I feel at home wherever I feel like a human being, whenever they treat me like a human. Until I came to Germany I didn't feel like a human, now I feel part of something good. I can change things, the big things and the little. Like the colour of this wall."

The wall has been painted with a shocking pink rectangle. A single joyful statement in colour. Yasir strokes it affectionately. Aymen explains: "Yasir was in prison two times for no reason. He was tortured. The colour of the corridor walls here is a bad colour, an unfortunate colour. It is the same colour that they have in the prison, and in Guantánamo and it is the same colour in Abu Ghraib. Yasir really loves colour and one day I asked him, 'OK what colour do you want?' and he told me pink so we did that. Some days when he's feeling bad he can't bear to look at the colour out in the hall, because it reminds him of the prisons and so he stays in his room, with his pink wall."

Yasir, interviewed by Philip Davenport 

Translation Aymen Montasser
Spandau, Berlin. December 2016

Butterfly, by Mahmood. Berlin, 2016