Kreuzberg: Labor Migration and Cultural Resilience

The 1960s and 70s transformed West Berlin in ways few neighborhoods embodied more vividly than Kreuzberg. Through active recruitment agreements with Italy, Greece, and Turkey, labor migration reshaped the city's streets and cultural landscape. This ambitious group exhibition opens in autumn 2026, centering the artists who lived and worked through these transformations, and the creative responses they forged to labor migration's complex realities.

The show brings together over 100 works spanning film, photography, painting, installation, and performance. Rather than treating these histories as purely past, the exhibition traces continuities into the present—the ongoing struggles for inclusion and equality that labor migrants and their descendants continue fighting today. The selection emphasizes work largely overlooked in mainstream narratives, offering a richer picture of Kreuzberg's international artistic significance.

Featuring established and emerging artists including Mehmet Aksoy, Eduardo Arroyo, Vlassis Caniaris, Nuray Demir, Azade Köker, Pınar Öğrenci, Jannis Psychopedis, Setareh Shahbazi, and many others, the exhibition is co-curated by Gürsoy Doğtaş and Patrizia Dander.

During the exhibition run, the Stadtmuseum Berlin presents a complementary show, Geteiltes Leben (Divided Life), at Museum Ephraim-Palais (September 11, 2026 – February 7, 2027).

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