Artist and Educator Daphne Brunet Speaks Against Berlin's 2025 Cultural Cuts
I have been living in Germany, in Berlin, for 10 years and work as a freelance artist and educator. With Covid and the murder of George Floyyd, there was an increased awareness of racism and discrimination in our society. I first became aware of programs for diversity development as a result and it was through these that I gained my first insight into the cultural funding landscape and was able to gain a foothold. I am involved in the Freedom of Movement Festival at the Cabuwazi children's and youth circus on Tempelhofer Feld. This festival emerged in 2017 from the Beyond Borders project and the training with young adults who were living in the emergency accommodation at Tempelhof Airport at the time. It gives these people on the Move a stage for their stories. Cooperation partners such as Berlin Mondiale, who have supported the festival since 2019, make it possible every year.
In 2023, as a small independent collective, we received funding from Berlin Mondiale to organize the first O-Platz family festival. Not only the money, but also the sharing of resources such as knowledge, networks, support with administrative processes, assistance and advice made it possible for us to receive funding and organize the festival again this year. This has enabled us to pay a team of over 40 people who experience discrimination in Germany for cultural work and political education work in public spaces. Without these programs, such community initiatives would not be possible.
I speak fluent German, have German citizenship and a Bachelor's degree from the USA. These are three great privileges. Nevertheless, as a woman with a chronic illness who experiences racism and other forms of discrimination, without the support and assistance of organizations and programs such as Berlin Mondiale, Diversity Arts Culture, ReachOut, Migrationsrat, Projektfonds Urbane Praxis and Fairstage, among others, I might never have gotten this start. If we want to break down barriers then we need to understand the following. For people without even one of these privileges, access to culture and political education is not possible without the very programmes and organizations that are now to be cut so drastically or even completely.
Daphne Brunet is a performing artist, playwright, director and cultural practitioner, unconventional and non-conformist. Her practice includes storytelling, dance, floor and aerial acrobatics, physical theater and circus pedagogy. As a cultural practitioner and performer, she creates encounters with the aim of making participants aware of the collective experiences that define our social identities. Here, spaces are created in which we activate our bodies as sources of experience and tools of knowledge.