Life and Survival

They live among us – and yet remain largely invisible: homeless women⁺ in Berlin. Giving them a voice and allowing them to speak for themselves is the goal of the work by querstadtein e. V., which brought the exhibition project to the Open Space in BERLIN GLOBAL. The association offers city tours as a format of political education, conducted by people who have experienced homelessness, flight, or migration themselves. During the tours, the guides share their own experiences as well as structural problems.

For the Open Space exhibition, querstadtein e. V. pursued an open project approach with the aim of focusing on female homelessness. They conducted interviews with (formerly) affected individuals, who had the opportunity to set the topics themselves.

On the inside of the opened doors, there are texts that provide a societal context for what is being said. These include the human right to adequate housing, the EU’s “Housing First” principle, and a clause in the current coalition agreement between CDU and SPD in Berlin, which states the aim to end homelessness and housing insecurity by 2030. “From the beginning, we asked ourselves how we could bring the issue of homelessness into a museum context without exhibiting or even exposing the people,” says Clemens Poldrack, project manager of querstadtein e. V., about the concept.

“We want to let the people speak for themselves and not have others speak about them.” However, it is also important to make clear that these are not just isolated cases. The portrait photos of the protagonists, which can be seen but not matched to the voices at the listening stations, contribute to this understanding. “This is a conscious decision,” says the association. “It is not important which face says something, as they speak on behalf of many other women⁺ who have had similar experiences.

The photographs are by Muhammed Lamin Jadama, who works as a street worker and artist in Berlin and is also active with querstadtein e. V. “It was a nice combination of our two focuses at querstadtein, as he conducts city tours on the topic of migration for us,” says Poldrack.

The temporary open space exhibition was originally supposed to end in late March 2025, but it has now been extended by three months and will be on display at BERLIN GLOBAL until the end of June. The association querstadtein is pleased with the support, as homelessness, especially among women⁺, is often forgotten. Visible homelessness is often associated with men. Women⁺ tend to hide their homelessness more for various reasons and become invisible.