Barazani e.V

BARAZANI.berlin is an interdisciplinary collective engaged with decolonial questions and practices, active since September 2020 as part of Decolonize Berlin e.V. The initiative grew out of the earlier Arbeitskreis Museen und Sammlungen, a working group focused on museums and collections, and took shape during the Corona pandemic first as a virtual space. In an early act of protest against the reconstruction of the Hohenzollern Palace, the collective imaginatively occupied the empty Schlossplatz, using digital tools to reclaim a public space that was, at the time, physically inaccessible, an origin story that speaks to the collective's enduring interest in memory, presence and the politics of public space.

Since 2021, BARAZANI.berlin has maintained its own action and project space at Spreeufer 6 in the Nikolaiviertel, situated directly across from the Humboldt Forum, a location that places the collective in close physical and symbolic proximity to one of Berlin's most significant sites of debate around colonial collections and restitution. This positioning allows BARAZANI.berlin to offer an alternative, community rooted space for reflection and cultural production in direct dialogue with the questions raised by its institutional neighbour.

The collective's contemporary importance lies in the breadth and consistency of its programming, which brings together exhibitions, performances, dinner tables, artistic walks, workshops, music, poetry and book presentations under a shared decolonial framework. Recurring formats such as the Barazani Dinner Table and the Meshwar Mixtapes series create recurring points of gathering and exchange, while individual projects have engaged with themes ranging from restitution and colonial history to solidarity fundraising for communities affected by disaster, indigenous knowledge, Afrofuturism and the decolonial potential of dance and performance within European museums.

Curatorially, BARAZANI.berlin favours collaborative and participatory formats over conventional exhibition making, frequently working with a wide network of artists, researchers, activists and community members from Berlin and beyond, and consistently centring collective authorship and shared reflection over individual curatorial vision. This approach positions the space as a place of active exchange and solidarity building as much as one of artistic presentation.

The collective's core organisational pillars are its physical project space at Spreeufer 6, its ongoing public programme of talks, workshops and gatherings, and its published ethical guidelines, which articulate the principles underpinning its collaborative and community oriented practice. As part of Decolonize Berlin e.V., BARAZANI.berlin operates within a nonprofit association structure, sustained through project based support, community contributions and donations connected to its public events, a grassroots funding model that reflects its identity as a genuinely collective and community driven initiative within Berlin's cultural landscape.