As Koreans living in Berlin since 2001, since the very beginning they have been interested in seeking a kind of universal identity spanning the various backgrounds of Berlin based contemporary artists in order to examine the question of identity as it is often perceived from the outside; according to gender, nationality and cultural milieu. To this end they created NON Berlin – Asia Contemporary A
rt Platform – in 2014. Two ideas are the mainstay of this:
firstly, ‘NON’ means ‘to discuss’ in Chinese. Thus NON Berlin opens up a platform for discussing the dichotomy between ‘East and West’ and ‘Asia and Europe’ and initiates ‘face to face’ meetings, facilitating exchange, discourse and networking. Secondly, and somewhat paradoxically, NON Berlin serves as a negation, ‘not Berlin’, although the project space – a draw for artists and producers from the independent cultural scenes of the world – is situated in Berlin’s centre. NON Berlin is not limited to a particular artistic scene or cultural identity. Instead, it presents projects that seek new interdisciplinary perspectives in order to create an intermediary zone for re-evaluating existing categories. Nomads from multiple or dynamic locations, and mostly stemming from multicultural backgrounds, possess a sensibility for current topics, transformations and fractures via their positioning as contemporary artists. NON Berlin has been a member of the Network of Independent Berlin Project Spaces and Initiatives since 2016. In 2018, NONBerlin received the prize Independent Art Space by Senate Department for Culture and Europe Berlin.
