FRAMED IS LOOKING FOR A NEW FRAME
In May 2022, FRAMED parted ways with the location that had been our home for the past three years (in Friedrichshain). Our lease was over and in any case we all felt it was time for a change. We packed the equipment, whitewashed the walls, moved everything to storage and set out into search of a new location, hoping and believing that this change entailed exciting opportunities.
This journey (like any real search) is full of ups and downs, exciting possibilities, disappointments, good people along the way, fantasies, hesitations, and so on.
I thought it would be interesting to try documenting this journey with words and pictures so I could, from time to time, share with you, the dearest FRAMED community, what’s going on…
Why?
Finding a new home for FRAMED is once again facing the question ‘why?’. Why does the world need a FRAMED? And to be honest, a question that haunts me even more is why do I need it? A need arises again to clear the intentions and clarify the will.
This brings me back to the first FRAMED event, somewhere in 2017, a few months after I moved to Berlin. I was new to the city and was looking to find a connection point to this new and foreign place. I had no plan. My mother always says that ‘troubles’ come by themselves but the ‘joys’ in life have to be invited. So I decided to host a party in our new apartment. I invited a friend (Daphna Massey Saker) to hang an exhibition of her artwork on the walls (which were still pretty empty at the time). I invited another friend (ABAGADA) to perform his music. I moved the little furniture we had to the back room, bought some drinks, made refreshments, baked some traditional ‘burekitas’ as my grandmother taught me and started inviting people. I invited the neighbors (mostly Germans), some friends from my German school (Syrians, Lebanese, Spaniards, etc.), I invited Israelis I knew were in the city, strangers standing in front of me at the checkout in the supermarket, basically I invited everyone that seemed nice around me. About forty people showed up. It was truly a magical night.
When the event ended in the wee hours of the night, while I was cleaning and trying to get the house back to normal, I noticed that I felt similar to how I felt after my first time singing on stage, when I was about nineteen. It was such a hard-to-define feeling, but when the concert ended, I knew I had found myself. I knew that no matter how hard and long the road ahead might be, I wanted to sing! Since then, over twenty years have passed, and quite a few albums were published, and here I am, collecting beer bottles and cleaning the floor and feeling like I found myself again. In Berlin. Without the language. Without a plan. Only with an inner need for connection and inspiration.
So what was this magic thing that happened that evening and made me feel that way? I think it was simply the connection created between different peoples in my home living room. I felt that I had created a space where people felt comfortable being themselves. When people feel comfortable they able to receive and then deep listening is possible, and out of honest listening a connection is made. A group of people from different backgrounds, different languages, different ages who experience a human connection is strong and meaningful and that excites me.
I wish for myself and for the Framed team a continued honest and adjustable search for this purpose. I promise to update you from time to time on how we have progressed. With great longing I wish to give everyone a warm greeting for a good and benevolent summer.
Yours, Yael.
