ARTSIDERS
2023. Documentation, photography, audio, videoBerlin, Germany
From 2012 until 2022 I worked as art director at Thikwa Werkstatt für Theater und Kunst, a workshop for the professionalization of artists with intellectual disabilities located in Berlin.
Thikwa is neither a school nor a leisure space for artistic creation. Thikwa is a center where artists with and without intellectual disabilities work professionally on different individual and collective projects in the visual and performing arts. It is a kind of Bauhaus where its artists work 35 hours a week on creation within the visual arts, music, dance, drama or sport.
Outsider Art is a term that describes art created outside the limits of official culture, art market, artistic currents or Academia. It is a term normally used to refer to, among other groups, artists with disabilities, chronic illnesses, deaf and neurodiverse cultural workers.
Outsider artists work creating unprecedented themes and deconstructing technical processes. Some outsider art reflects extreme mental states, particular idiosyncrasies or elaborate fantasy worlds often captured through repetition and seriation.
However, I don't really like the term Outsider and I prefer to call them Artsiders.
Thikwa is neither a school nor a leisure space for artistic creation. Thikwa is a center where artists with and without intellectual disabilities work professionally on different individual and collective projects in the visual and performing arts. It is a kind of Bauhaus where its artists work 35 hours a week on creation within the visual arts, music, dance, drama or sport.
Outsider Art is a term that describes art created outside the limits of official culture, art market, artistic currents or Academia. It is a term normally used to refer to, among other groups, artists with disabilities, chronic illnesses, deaf and neurodiverse cultural workers.
Outsider artists work creating unprecedented themes and deconstructing technical processes. Some outsider art reflects extreme mental states, particular idiosyncrasies or elaborate fantasy worlds often captured through repetition and seriation.
However, I don't really like the term Outsider and I prefer to call them Artsiders.
Created in 1995 as a as pilot project, recognized in 1998 as a workshop for people with disabilities, the THIKWA WERKSTATT FÜR THEATER UND KUNST (Thikwa Workshop for Theater and Art) is today an art center of international reputation, in which 43 artists currently work continuously and full-time with a focus on diverse artistic professionalization. In the mutual exchange between the areas of the performing and the visual arts, their own artistic style is developed and tested. The artists are present at exhibitions in museums, galleries and other exhibition spaces.
Artists portrayed in Artsiders project:
Lia Massetti, Addas Ahmad, Louis Edler, Karol Golebiowski, Ingo Joers, Felix Brünig, Fabian Bisschof, Debrecina Arega, Cornelia Glowniewski, Corinna Heidepriem, Lukasz Loska,
Oliver Rincke, Peter Panków, Stephan Sauerbier, Tim Petersen, Torsten Holzapfel, Vincent Martinez, Deniz Doga, Merete Kaatz, Robert Jannin, Anne-Sophie Mosch, Sammy Serag, Rachel Rosen, Mereika Schulz, Hilarius Urban, Laura Rammo, Atalay Dogan.
Artists portrayed in Artsiders project:
Lia Massetti, Addas Ahmad, Louis Edler, Karol Golebiowski, Ingo Joers, Felix Brünig, Fabian Bisschof, Debrecina Arega, Cornelia Glowniewski, Corinna Heidepriem, Lukasz Loska,
Oliver Rincke, Peter Panków, Stephan Sauerbier, Tim Petersen, Torsten Holzapfel, Vincent Martinez, Deniz Doga, Merete Kaatz, Robert Jannin, Anne-Sophie Mosch, Sammy Serag, Rachel Rosen, Mereika Schulz, Hilarius Urban, Laura Rammo, Atalay Dogan.
Oliver Rincke / ArtworksThis work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union.
The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.
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Thanks to Nicole Hummel, Nina Ryba and Luisa Walther for their help and to all the artists for their collaboration
The THIKWA WERKSTATT FÜR THEATER UND KUNST is operated as a cooperation between the Nordberliner Werkgemeinschaft gGmbH (nbw) and the Theater Thikwa e.V.
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Torsten Holzapfel is a visual artist and has been working at THIKWA Werkstatt für Theater und Kunst for more than 25 years. His artwork reflects his interest in the Berlin subway (U-Bahn), big cities and cartography.
Recently he has made a series of paintings with each of the subway stations of the U8 line in Berlin.
For this series he has been nominated in 2023 for the prestigious "euward9" award, the European art award for painting and graphic arts in the context of mental disability
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Recently he has made a series of paintings with each of the subway stations of the U8 line in Berlin.
For this series he has been nominated in 2023 for the prestigious "euward9" award, the European art award for painting and graphic arts in the context of mental disability
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Lia Massetti is a visual artist and dancer working at Thikwa Werkstatt für Theater und Kunst since 2011. Her work is characterized by an abstract representation in medium and large format recalling color waves worked mainly on paper and in a chromatic range based on acrylic paint where earthy colors predominate.
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Karol Golebiowski / 
Fabian Bischoff / 
Debrecina Arega / 
Corinna Heidepriem is an actress and illustrator working at Thikwa Werkstatt für Theater und Kunst since 1997. Her artwork is characterized by serialization and repetition. For more than ten years she has been using the same size and color of paper as well as markers and pens always of the same brand.
She has made hundreds of works where he repeats motifs such as kites, trees, red and green apples, rooms, meals, Fanta and beer bottles or juices in tetra brick among many others. Her artwork has been exhibited in many places in Germany, Spain, Hungary and Austria. She also participated in the Documenta in Kassel in 2010.
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She has made hundreds of works where he repeats motifs such as kites, trees, red and green apples, rooms, meals, Fanta and beer bottles or juices in tetra brick among many others. Her artwork has been exhibited in many places in Germany, Spain, Hungary and Austria. She also participated in the Documenta in Kassel in 2010.
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