What does it mean to have to leave everything behind? What does it feel like to arrive in a foreign country – without friends and family, without language, without a beloved toy? The project “Roots in the Wind” is a collaboration between Ephra and Exilmuseum Berlin. Drawing on the biographies of persecuted people who were able to flee during the Nazi era, the workshop makes loss, hope and new beginnings tangible for children – and asks: What provides support when everything familiar has disappeared? Today, these questions are once again alarmingly relevant, and for many of the children taking part, they are not merely ideas and concepts, but lived experience.
The Exilmuseum Berlin Foundation has invited Ephra into its premises on Fasanenstraße to jointly develop an interactive, multi-hour workshop for children. Ephra is a non-profit Berlin organisation that has been developing innovative educational projects at the intersection of remembrance culture, art and participatory history education since 2012. Founded by artist Rebecca Raue, Ephra opens spaces for dialogue for children and young people. Ephra uses creative methods to address even complex social issues such as flight and exile, persecution and antisemitism with children and young people. Engaging with individual biographies and the experiences of people who had to flee Germany creates a space that incorporates contemporary lived realities: Today, people seek refuge in Germany. What is needed to make arrival a success?
The title “Roots in the Wind” refers to the image of an uprooted tree. Roots stand for origin, family, language and everything else that provides support. The wind tears the roots out of the ground and represents displacement, terror and being a stranger. The workshop encourages children to actively create, think and empathise. At three stations – SETTING OUT, ON THE WAY and ARRIVING / FINDING A HOME – workshop participants gather information about one person each, as in a scavenger hunt.
The focus is always on the children themselves and, of course, on the individual life stories of people in exile. Roots in the Wind is therefore an artistic educational format that transforms the Exilmuseum’s workshop space into an exceptional and special place for extracurricular learning. The project makes history tangible and conveys flight not as an abstraction, but as a personal fate.
Project management: Rebecca Raue (Ephra) & Ruth Ur (Exilmuseum)
Concept: Rebecca Raue, Michaela Englert, Philipp Sukstorf (Exilmuseum)
Artistic direction & workshop facilitation: Rebecca Raue
Artistic and educational collaboration: Michaela Englert, Ada Labahn, Janna Schaar, Caroline Böttcher
Research: Sassa Trülzsch
School and project coordination: Sara Rosenkranz
Assistance: Célia Honegger
Video: artbeats
Funded by:
