LABA Berlin

Final exhibition at the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien.

Mar’a’yeh is an artists fellowship by Laba Berlin, inviting Berlin-based artists who identify as Jewish and/or Muslim to participate in a year-long process of exchange, conversation, and co-creation.

01/06/2026

MEET OUR FELLOW: Simay Keles ✨

Simay Keles is a painter based in Berlin, Germany.
Born in Izmir, Turkey, she moved to Germany to pursue her studies when she was 18. Working in series, Keles’ work responds to nature, migration and human experience. Keles is profoundly inspired by her travels. Changing places and traveling through the cultures have always been a part of her life. She paints what she recognizes and witnesses as beautiful and in danger of erosion.

Her work moves between figuration and abstraction, depending on the series she is working on.
Her layered paintings consist of oil and acrylic colors. Without making sketches in advance, she uses both sides of the canvas, the different layers serve as a base for the next layer whilst leaving them all partly visible or the viewer through the transparent materials (e.g. tulle, silk, etc). She applies a sculptural approach to the canvas, as the spatial displacements resulting from the two layers create visual confusion, optical illusions and an unconventional perception of spaces. Aiming to keep the naturalness as an aspect within her work, she sometimes leaves unpainted and untouched spots on the raw canvas.

27/05/2026

MEET OUR FELLOW: Alexandru Gavriel Ganea ✨

Alexandru Gavriel Ganea (born 1990, Jerusalem) is a sculptor living and working in Berlin, Germany and Carrara, Italy. He holds a Masterʼs degree in Fine Arts which he acquired at the Weissensee Academy of Fine arts and Design in Berlin, under the guidance of Prof. Else Gabriel.Ganea works predominantly with marble and wood, creating sculptures that explore tension, duality and spatial relationships. His practice is guided by an intuitive, material led process; allowing the natural ow of the material to shape each form.Ganea focuses on creating work that emerges from within, drawing on emotion, as well as the relationships between humans, materials, and forms. Beginning with self- observation and his immediate surroundings, he aims to create works that exist between modernist heritage and the contemporaryexpression.

Credit Photo 3 Dor Schwartz
Credit Photo 4 Noam Rosenthal

22/05/2026

MEET OUR FELLOW: Hamza Mohammed Beg

Hamza Mohammed Beg is a Muslim artist whose practice unfolds across poetry, video, sound, and performance. His work is grounded in his training as a poet and shaped by an academic background in history, archival practices, visual narrative, and non-Western modes of knowledge and expression.

His artistic practice is defined by large-scale works of fiction that emerge across multiple mediums, held together through workshops and discursive formats, forming layered and performative narrative spaces.

Thematically, his work, both curatorial and independent, engages with questions of faith, labour, and the construction of identity.

His practice has been supported by institutions including the Goethe-Institut, Southbank Centre London, Vital Capacities, APAL (Asian Performing Artist Lab), OnSite Festival, and the Slade School of Fine Art.

He is also a member of the Berlin-based curatorial collective Akimbo, where he co-organizes experimental poetics events and an annual short film festival.

Credit Photo 3 Isabelle M. Schmitz
Credit Photo 7 Roman-Sten Tõnissoo

18/05/2026

MEET OUR FELLOW: Jeremy Steinberger ✨

Jeremy Steinberger is a filmmaker and journalist whose work explores the politics of belonging. Moving between documentary filmmaking and cultural journalism, he focuses on people who transform unfamiliar environments into spaces of belonging through art, music, and community. Across his projects, he is interested in how identities shaped by migration, exile, and cultural rupture can become the basis for solidarity and collective liberation rather than nationalism.
After reclaiming his family’s German citizenship, he moved to Berlin to develop a film investigating Jewish memory and the contradictions of postwar German remembrance culture. Beginning with his family’s history in a small German town, the project examines how communities construct narratives about the past and how younger generations are renegotiating Jewish identity in relation to them.
Steinberger has directed short documentaries for artists including Willie Nelson and reported on music and culture for Bandcamp Daily, The Austin Chronicle, K*T, and Consequence.

15/05/2026

MEET OUR FELLOW: Olivia Kassaei ✨

Olivia Kassaei is an Austrian-Iranian writer and artist based in Berlin. Her background in art criticism and cinema studies informs both her artistic research and material explorations.
She wanders through the world like a detective, turning to the subtle, the quiet, and sometimes the blinding. More recently this has meant exploring fragments from (family) archives, working through video and sculpture.

Her work lingers on the forgotten, on ruins, and on processes of erasure in relation to personal and cultural narratives. Playing with different forms in the studio is her way of searching for the universe her work might inhabit while grappling with larger questions about art, meaning, and practice.

She holds an interdisciplinary BA in Thinking as a Creative Act from New York University and is currently applying for Master’s degrees in Berlin.

14/05/2026

In our first Beit Madrasa session, centered on close textual study, we read the story of Moses and the Burning Bush (Exodus 3-4) alongside the first revelation to Mohammed (Surah Al-’Alaq 96:1–5, 19)

In the story of Moses, God names Themself as ’I Am who I Am” — pure being, self-existent and absolute. In the first revelation to Muhammad in the cave of Hira, the divine name is invoked as the source in whose name we read, learn, and pray. Where one reveals God as Being, the other calls us to draw near to that Being which sees all, through knowledge, humility, and prayer. Between them lies a shared movement: from human uncertainty, doubt, or fear toward a deeper presence with what is.

Thank you to our director, Dr. Dekel Peretz, and Dr. Mohammad Gharaibeh (Institute for Islamic Studies, Humboldt University), for their guidance and insight. As well as to our fellows for their thoughtful engagement, questioning, and discernment in our conversation.

13/05/2026

MEET OUR FELLOW: A(Viv) Maoz Haggiag ✨

A(Viv) Maoz Haggiag was born in Libya and fled with her family to Rome, Italy, as a refugee at the age of three. At eighteen, A(Viv) migrated to Israel. In 2013, A(Viv) moved to Berlin, where she lives and works today.

Working across photography, sculpture, and installation, A(Viv) integrates digital media and video to create hybrid visual environments. Shaped by early cross-cultural experiences, A(Viv)’s practice explores themes of borders, migration, origin, time, and refuge — both as personal narratives and broader cultural conditions.

The work seeks to evoke emotional and psychological states, inviting viewers into spaces of tension, transformation, and uncertainty. A(Viv)’s creative process is intuitive and exploratory, allowing ideas to emerge organically through visual experimentation.

A(Viv) holds a Fine Arts Diploma from Minshar School of Art in Tel Aviv and a Diploma in Curatorial and Museology Studies from the Israeli Art Institute.

A(Viv) continues to work as both an artist and curator in Berlin and Israel.

11/05/2026

MEET OUR FELLOW: Özlem Yilmaz ✨

Özlem Yılmaz is a Berlin-based musician, nay player and instructor and researcher of Islamic studies whose work unfolds at the intersection of sound, spirituality, and intercultural dialogue. She combines academic research on Islamic philosophy and Sufi traditions with an active musical practice rooted in the maqam systems of the Middle East, focusing especially on Istanbul soundscape.

A ney player since her early years, Özlem has studied extensively within Ottoman, Persian, and contemporary modal music traditions, working with distinguished teachers. Her musical language draws from Sufi music, Mevlevi ritual repertoire, and diverse maqam traditions, while remaining open to experimentation and cross-cultural exchange. Central to her artistic practice is the exploration of music as a space for interreligious encounter. She has contributed to numerous projects and performances in collaboration with institutions such as the Catholic Academy Berlin, Protestant church communities, and the German Islamic Academy. Through concerts, workshops, and interdisciplinary formats, she creates platforms where Islamic musical traditions engage in dialogue with other religious and cultural expressions .

Özlem is also active as an organizer and educator, leading workshops on maqam music and ney, directing Sufi choir initiatives, and developing participatory formats that bring together diverse communities. Alongside her artistic work, she publishes on music in Islam and contributes to academic projects on Sufism and Islamic intellectual history. In her practice, scholarship and performance are deeply intertwined: both are guided by a search for meaning, resonance, and connection across traditions.

Adresse

Exhibition Space: Kottbusser Str. 10 / Offices And Studios: Kohlfurter Str. 41-4
Berlin
10999

Webseite

http://www.laba.berlin/

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