GUESTures / GOSTIkulacije

Content

GUESTures / GOSTIkulacije is a decade-long project by artist Margareta Kern that combines a dual-channel video installation with a participatory migratory archive to trace the overlooked histories of Yugoslav ‘guest workers’ – women who migrated to West Berlin in the late 1960s and early 1970s to work in television factories. The project brings together interviews with migrant women, their family album photographs and personal letters, alongside official archival material. Drawing on her own experience of migration, as well as her family history, Kern’s project addresses the double invisibility faced by migrant women workers, whose stories are often marginalised both in their host countries and ‘back home’.

Methodology

In researching and exhibiting GUESTures / GOSTIkulacije, a number of creative and critical methodologies were developed: the material is presented as interactive workstations, inviting visitors to engage with and expand upon these stories – become ‘guest workers’ – while live readings transform the gallery into an act of counter-memory and a form of living, migratory archive. The two-channel video brings the testimonies of women workers to life through a montage of performance, re-enactment, and archival footage.

Website – GUESTures / GOSTIkulacije

Video Interviews: “Voices on 60 German-Turkish years” as part of the exhibition “We are from here: Turkish-German life in 1990. Photographs by Ergun Çağatay”

Content

In 2021, documentary video interviews were created especially for this project, in which personalities of different generations living in Germany who have shaped the public discourse on the topic of Turkish migration in a special way have their say.

The collection also includes four female perspectives. We spoke with journalist Aslı Sevindim, sociologist Necla Kelek, former professional footballer Tuğba Tekkal, and musician Derya Yıldırım.

Methodology

Ergun Çağatay’s photographs do not stand alone. They build a bridge between the past and the present, serving as a starting point for a contemporary dialogue on belonging, identity, and notions of home. More than three decades after they were taken, the photographs reveal that questions of visibility, representation, and social participation among people of Turkish descent in Germany remain highly relevant today.

Created especially for the exhibition, eight documentary video portraits extend this dialogue into the present. They feature eight people living in Germany from different generations and professional backgrounds who have each shaped the public discourse on German-Turkish migration in significant ways.

The semi-structured video interviews explore topics such as the recognition and acceptance of migrant experiences and ways of life, as well as the complexity and multidimensional nature of migration, belonging, and identity. By connecting historical perspectives with personal narratives, they illustrate how individual life stories are intertwined with broader social developments. In doing so, they make both history and personal experiences tangible and give voice to diverse perspectives.

Website – Video Interviews