Previous Articles

Comic Invasion Berlin 2016

A Project to Give Voice to the Stories of Refugees

April 20th, 2016
BG-Culture-2016.04.19- Comic Invasion Berlin 2016-Caterina Gion1.jpg

From the 16th to the 17th of April the Comic Invasion Berlin 2016 (CIB) took place in Urban Spree. It is an annual comic festival with a lot of free events such as comic exhibition, workshops, live drawing and concerts for all kinds of audiences, including children who could be creative thanks to arts and crafts tables and adults who could create their own illustrations.

Starting from July 2015, Matthias Hamann, from the refugee shelter Berlin City Mission, and Ali Fitzgerald, a Berlin based American artist, launched a comics workshop in several refugee shelters in Berlin, with the aim to use visual storytelling as a common language to tell stories. In September,  Vox.com published a comic by Ali Fitzgerald, documenting her work with the refugees in Moabit and their drawings'. In December 2015 a first exhibition took place, in cooperation with Amnesty International, at the New school of Photography, showing the results from Ali Fitzgerald's comic workshop. 

This year, the project "Drawing to be heard" took place from January until April 2016, organized by Comic Invasion Berlin and Renate Comics E.V. The courses were planned for one or two hours every week and were thought by a team of comic creators living in Berlin and some translators. Workshops were open to all ages and the topics ranged from traumatic experiences to landscapes and beautiful memories of a homeland left behind. The drawings were shown as part of the festival satellite programs and collected as a book. As Ali Fitzgerald said during the second episode of the CIBP (Comic Invasion Berlin - Podcast), working with the refugees has been a great experience for both sides so far. For the complete interview see the link: http://www.comicinvasionberlin.de/ciblog/cib-podcast-2-refugee-comic-project.

Established in April 2012, the Comic Invasion Berlin has the aim to be for everyone, from comic interested to comic enthusiasts, and for free. It is dedicated to the local comic’s scene in order to generate a meeting point and a network for artists and publishers. Within it there is a big satellite events program in Berlin comic locations and a comic competition whose winning works will be presented in a COMICINVASIONBERLIN contest comic book.
In 2015 over 7,000 visitors attended the two days of the main festival at Urban Spree and the 15 collateral events in various locations throughout the city.

When: from the 16th to the 17th of April 2016
Where: Urban Spree - Revaler Str. 99 (corner Warschauer Str. x Revaler Str.) Berlin-Friedrichshain
Official Websitehttp://www.comicinvasionberlin.de/

BG-Culture-2016.04.19- Comic Invasion Berlin 2016-Caterina Gion2.jpg
BG-Culture-2016.04.19- Comic Invasion Berlin 2016-Caterina Gion3.jpg

News from Berlin
Caterina Gion, Berlin Global