migrantpolitan

Use: Workspace and Living; Meeting point
House type: Passive house
Floor: Ground floor
Year of construction: 2014
Total size / Built-up area: 106,3 sq m
Number of rooms: 3 rooms (living room for events or everyday use with bureau/ fashion corner and 2 potential bedrooms) + kitchen
Management: Migrantpolitan community
Curator & contact: Anas Aboura
Designed and built by: Baltic Raw with the help of refugees an students
Area: Avant Garden on the Kampnagel site

House biography

Migrantpolitan is a small building situated in the Avant Garden of Kampnagel. It first started off as a temporary construction, built as a miniature of the Rote Flora during the summer festival of 2014, before becoming the EcoFavela, a temporary housing for refugees, from October 2014 to January 2015. After multiple adaptations and reconstructions, it took on the name Migrantpolitan.

It is a place for everybody to gather around, cook, eat, play, talk, learn, party, and more. But above all, as its name suggests, it is for and from migrants. They make up the majority of those organizing the space, planning and carrying out events, and using it for artistic and creative work from events to a fashion brand and more. At the same time, it serves as a meeting point where people support each other on a daily basis. Many refugees' lives have been, or still are being, shaped and supported by Migrantpolitan: as a place to live, a shelter, a chosen family, a space to exchange knowledge about the necessities of staying in the country, and to talk through future perspectives.
It is a house that works deeply interconnected with Kampnagel, yet still remarkably independent, with its own rules and freedom. During the upcoming renovation, Migrantpolitan will be the only place that stays open throughout.

The project raises several questions: What does the daily use of a place look like when it serves both as a workspace and as a site for community gathering? How does one live and work within such a small space? Did unofficially creating a shelter, grounded only in artistic freedom, come with its own problems? And how is a building that was only ever meant to be temporary being sustained over time?

While getting to know Migrantpolitan, we found ourselves asking how a queer perspective and queer ways of living align with migrant life, both practically and theoretically, which is why we offer short queer theory insights throughout Migrantpolitan's different themes.