bi'bak: Take a Closer Look, and Maybe From Another Perspective

Some in Istanbul might remember them by the exhibition with Depo in 2018 that was entitled "Bitter Things" which still continues to move around, now in Romania.

For the ones that have not encountered with bi'bak before, I met the founders, artist and curators Can Sungu ve Malve Lippmann a few weeks ago online. They joined me from their project space in Berlin. Our interview was cut a few times with their cat moving the camera and a passer-by on the street asking for someone they do not know. Even these give an idea of bi'bak's space. Let's hear more from them.

It has been an interview on conversation with some other interviews on the independent cinemas. Here you could check the related interviews.

As You Take A Deeper Look You See Something Else

S: Tell me the story behind the name of your project, bi’bak?

M: We rented this place as a studio space first.

There is a big window opening to the street and when we moved here everybody was looking through the window, asking “What are you doing?” Then we transformed it to a concept, saying “come in, look in” and now we say “take a closer look”, to historical context, to memory culture.

And maybe also look from another perspective than the usual main discourses, transported by the main media.

C: As you take a deeper look you see something else. It works very well actually here in Wedding, this neighbourhood that we are in has a big migrant population and Turkish is like a second language.

M: In the last years a lot of young people also moved into this area, the rents were comparably cheap still. They are raising also.

C: There is also a new migration from Turkey to Berlin, in the last few years young people are coming to live here.

Göçün Kültürdeki İzi

S: What is your main focus at bi’bak?

C: In our programme we focus on transnational narratives. That includes different types of topics like migration history, global mobilities, but also all the popular culture around that and their aesthetic dimensions:

How do we see the traces of migration in the urban culture, popular culture? As in a city like Berlin which is very much shaped by migrant communities and their cultures.

This is the main line that we follow everything we do here since five years.

This transnational approach traces alternative perspectives to an Euro-centric point of view which still dominates the field of arts and culture.

We feel the main discourse here, in Europe and in Germany, is very much defined by white German perspective. Still non-white perspectives are very much marginalized or excluded as cultural actor, policymakers and players in the field. That’s why we mainly give space to non-European perspectives.

Everything that we do e.g. the film programme, workshops, discussions, we follow this line. This also brings us the possibility to work together with communities.

M: Each project, also the experts that we invite; they reach out to their communities. For example for the Thai Film Festival we had a huge Asian community attracted by this and it mixes with other communities.

C: This transnational approach also brings these communities together. We bring different groups together to discuss their perspectives, experiences and strategies e.g. linked to their work dealing with rascism or colonialism. This collaborative work with the communities aims to offer alternative perspectives within the cultural field.

It is Important that Culture is Accessible for Everybody

S: It makes it much more interesting to have this broader perspective. Let’s come to Sinema Transtopia. To open a cinema at the times we are passing through seems courageous. How did you decide to do it?

M: We planned it already a long time ago. We have been doing our film programme in the former space of bi’bak since 2015. But the technical conditions were not very convenient. Even before the pandemic we were thinking about moving to another space. For this reason we were working with Herkes için Mimarlık with students from Germany and Turkey to develop ideas of what a cinema space could look like, already in 2018. And since then we were continuously thinking about it.

In Berlin as the rents are going up the space for culture is always getting narrower. It is very difficult to find an affordable space.

There is this initiative Haus der Statistik, right on Alexanderplatz. They developed an alternative usage concept for a huge formerly GDR administration building of 600.000 square meters. We quickly decided to move and renovated a space on the ground floor to a cinema. But our contract is not long term. Already this year the renovation of the whole building will start and continue until 2025. After that, there will be a possibility to come back to the house.