Voices of Metropolis

“If I don’t burn, if you don’t burn, if we don’t burn – how will darkness ever turn into light?”

— Nâzım Hikmet

Through communal singing and music-making, migrant workers from Turkey crossed cultural and political boundaries in the 1970s and 1980s. “Turkish” music in Berlin was far from monolithic. Shaped by diverse religious, ethnic and political influences, it ranged from Ottoman classical music to Alevi devotional Cem songs and jazz. Visual artists played an integral role in this scene, contributing not only as singers, but also as designers of album covers.

In 1973, composer Tahsin İncirci founded the Türkischer Arbeiterchor Westberlin (Turkish Workers’ Choir of West Berlin) in Kreuzberg. The group also performed in the GDR, linking its songs to labour struggles in Turkey. By doing so, the ensemble continued the tradition of 19th-century workers’ choirs that used collective singing as a means of political expression. Listening to the radio was another communal practice; however, during the Cold War, it also served as a political tool. As Turkish workers began arriving in West Germany in 1961, new radio programmes were developed specifically for them.

Broadcast from the East, they were able to listen to Bizim Radyo (Our Radio), founded in Leipzig in 1958 by the Turkish Communist Party and led by the poet Nâzım Hikmet until 1963. In 1964, West Germany launched Köln Radyosu (Radio Cologne) in direct response to Eastern influence. Both stations broadcast news and music from Turkey, helping listeners maintain their connection to their country of origin.

Kaya Behkalam

Male-perceived person at table with laptop and large screen showing forest scene and individuals.

Kaya Behkalam’s work Unterholzgedächtnis develops a speculative future scenario that looks back on a buried past: in the former border area of Frohnau Forest, Berlin appears as a lost city. A group of researchers collects soil samples and investigates the site through sound, movement and voice. At the centre is the question of what becomes embedded in the historical layers of a society: transmitted knowledge and experiences of belonging, but also exclusion and racist violence that are passed on through genera-tions. The researchers follow traces that elude official archives. In between, dancers from the MuAK ensemble appear, consisting of Korean female migrant workers and their descendants. At the end, Otto Oscar Hernández Ruiz sings a song with lyrics written in the 1930s by the Jewish-Austrian writer Fritz Löhner-Beda, who was murdered at Auschwitz III Monowitz in 1942. The song is also featured in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), which portrays the racism experienced by a Moroccan migrant worker in West Germany.

Kerem Ergün

The Türkischer Arbeiterchor Westberlin, the first Turkish-language workers’ choir outside Turkey, was founded in West Berlin in 1973, the year of the wildcat strikes by “guest workers” and the official ban of most labour recruitment agreements. Its founder Tahsin İncirci, a classically trained violinist, directed the choir throughout its entire existence. Emerging from a circle of Turkish socialists and other migrants from Turkey, the choir rehearsed in Kreuzberg. Its members included workers, political refugees, students and several professional musicians. They performed wherever struggles for rights were taking place, including at strike meetings and demonstrations, as well as at celebrations, in the Philharmonie and at exhibition openings. The choir’s central point of reference
was Nâzım Hikmet, whose poems, written during imprisonment and exile, İncirci set to music. The choir disbanded in the 1980s.

Kerem Ergün brings together recordings of concerts of the Türkischer Arbeiterchor Westberlin in 1970s Kreuzberg. The selection presented in the exhibition emerged from the ongoing research for his feature documentary Wunderbare Wolken (Wonderful Clouds, 2027), which explores the history of the choir.

Eduardo Paolozzi

From 1974 to 1975, Eduardo Paolozzi was a guest of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and lived in a studio apartment on Kottbusser Damm. The son of Italian immigrants, Paolozzi devoted himself to “Turkish” music and culture during his time in Kreuzberg. The lines of lyrics in the displayed songs derive from tape recordings made by musicologist Kurt Reinhard from the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv. Starting in 1955, Reinhard and his wife Ursula made these recordings during expeditions through southern Turkey. Paolozzi’s works speak of longing and farewell, but also of a violent history. Franko’ Amsterd, for instance, references the Kozanoğlu song Çıktım Kozan’ın dağına (I Climbed Mount Kozan), about the defeat, flight and resistance of the Avşar Turkmen, as well as their forced resettlement by the Ottoman central government in the 19th century. In Paolozzi’s works, these traditional laments intersect with West German industrial modernity and his experience of migration on Kottbusser Damm.

Several framed artworks hang in a gallery. Light-colored wall and floor.

Kreuzberg: Kunst und Migration seit 1960, installation view, Gropius Bau, 2026

Hanefi Yeter

Picknick in Berlin (Picnic in Berlin)

(1975)

Picknick in Berlin depicts an idyllic everyday scene in a public park, where families relax on colourful blankets. For many migrants, West Berlin parks served as vital gathering places, as their landlords often prohibited receiving visitors. This peaceful atmosphere stands in stark contrast to widespread prejudices that portrayed neighbourhoods like Kreuzberg as dangerous. Yet, the tired, blurred faces of the figures disrupt the idyll, hinting at the precarious living conditions underlying the scene.

Influenced by Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, his professor at the Istanbul arts academy İstanbul Devlet Güzel Sanatlar Akademisi, Yeter incorporated elements of Ottoman miniature painting, a style historically used to illustrate manuscripts until the 18th century. Key characteristics of this genre include painted frames and the use of hierarchical perspective, in which image elements are depicted larger or smaller depending on their importance to the narrative.

Two painted picnic scenes; top shows a blanket with three people, bottom shows another with four people among trees.

Hanefi Yeter, Picknick in Berlin, 1975, courtesy: Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien

Zwei unter uns (Two among us)

(1984)

This overpainted collage, composed of works by Akbar Behkalam and Hanefi Yeter, served as the cover design for a biography of the two artists. In Zwei unter uns (1984), author Frederik Hetmann explores the lives of Behkalam and Yeter, who shared a Studio at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Kreuzberg during the late 1970s. The book offers a particularly vivid account of their artistic exchange: Both artists engaged critically in social issues and drew on elements of miniature painting traditions from their regions of origin. Published by Ararat Verlag and edited by Ahmet Doğan, a close friend of Yeter and Behkalam, the biography offers a glimpse into the networks of friendship and collaboration that connected artists in Kreuzberg during the 1970s and 1980s.

More on Hanefi Yeter

In the exhibition chapter “At the Factory“In the exhibition chapter “The Administered Life“In the exhibition chapter “Street Plays – Childhood in Kreuzberg“In the exhibition chapter “Pursued by the Past“

Serpil Yeter

A painting depicting a group of elderly people on the screen of a cathode-ray tube television.

Serpil Yeter, WDR-Ausländerprogramm, 1982

WDR-Ausländerprogramm (WDR Foreigners Programme)

(1982)

Köln Radyosu, a Turkish-language radio programme produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), began broadcasting in 1964. Before the existence of Turkish-language television, it served as a vital source of information for many migrants from Turkey living in West Germany. Serpil Yeter’s oversized depiction of the radio highlights the significance of this listening experience, which fostered essential spaces for exchange. Köln Radyosu addressed its listeners’ needs and connected them, particularly amid migration-related challenges, by inviting them to send letters and make phone calls. At the same time, the programme’s entertaining music and comedy segments offered moments of belonging.

More on Serpil Yeter

In the exhibition chapter “Claiming One's Own Image”In the exhibition chapter “Pursued by the Past”