About Us

In Bremen’s Steintor district, at the junction of Fehrfeldstraße and Humboldtstraße, there is a Memorial Pavilion that was initiated by Köfte Kosher, an art-activism youth project that encourages young people to fight back against discrimination and right-wing violence. Köfte Kosher also works to raise broad public awareness of these crimes. Its main focus is therefore to commemorate murdered people in public space, on the street, in everyday life—in other words, in the very places people are attacked. By putting the biographies of murder victims in the public eye, Köfte Kosher makes sure that they will never be forgotten.

Köfte Kosher

2012

In 2012, Köfte Kosher started as a Jewish-Muslim dialogue project. Creating a Memorial Pavilion was part of our week of action against right-wing violence. We realized that it was vital to strengthen young people’s sense of pride in their respective cultural identities and, at the same time, to motivate them to stand together in solidarity against all forms of discrimination directed at specific groups. They delved into researching the biographies of twelve randomly selected individuals who had been murdered by right-wing extremists in the period 1990 to 2010. Bremen City Council (Stadtwerke) allowed us to use an electrical substation for the project, which is located on the square now called Marwa-El-Sherbini-Platz. During the action week, twelve stencil portraits were created and sprayed onto the substation’s walls; and under the rallying cry “Right-wing violence concerns all of us!” the young people were mentored by staff members from various Bremen advice and counselling services that work to combat and prevent all forms of group-based discrimination. Space was created for young people to share with one another their personal experience of discrimination and exclusion.

In addition to the political content of Köfte Kosher, we explored street art, in particular stencil art. Thus, we worked with a medium that is part and parcel of urban discourse: street art openly seeks dialogue with society and so plays a role in defining city life. The independent artists who make street art generally remain anonymous or use a “tag” (a pseudonym). This fusion of visibility and invisibility, anonymity and public profile can be read as strategic communication. The work of art temporarily intervenes in everyday life, but also may be defaced or destroyed at any time. Street art turns the spotlight not on the artist but on the work itself and the message it conveys.

It was these aspects of street art which led us to use stencil art in the Köfte Kosher project. Our aim was to rescue the victims of right-wing violence from anonymity and social indifference. By putting their portraits and their histories in the public eye, we brought them back into everyday life.

Working together during our action week led to the Memorial Pavilion. Young people were given a chance to get involved in an art-activism project that has carved out a form of lasting public tribute: a space of commemoration.

https://vimeo.com/153159854

2018

In 2018, the Memorial Pavilion was restored; the stencils were retouched and put under glass for protection. Together with young people from the Wilhelm Wagenfeld School, we worked on expanding the project concept. VR (virtual reality) was now to lend another dimension to our work of commemoration.

One part of our research was to identify the various forms of commemoration that we encounter in everyday life. Which works of art concerned with the politics of memory already exist in public space? Students tackled this question as part of their school program, and in the process learned a lot about project management. They worked independently in small groups. Each group developed its own artistic concept for a form of public commemoration. The aim was to use a visual medium to preserve the memory of the twelve victims of violence.

Project work within a familiar, trusted group allowed students to address these issues in depth while sharing and reflecting on their own personal experience. They discussed various forms of discrimination and explored options for commemorating every victim of violence in an appropriate way. One major challenge was research into the victims’ biographies. Although all the attacks are documented online, information about the victims’ lives is sparse and incomplete. The commemorative spaces created by the students leave room for the viewers’ personal associations. The Pavilion was given a fresh look as well as a new dimension. Students used VR (virtual reality) in an attempt to commemorate the outrageous acts of violence while respecting the victims’ dignity.

For stills from the project and a brief biography of the students involved, see here.