... based in Altes Finanzamt, Neukölln. Altes Finanzamt is a queer-feminist collective of artists, a project and event space focusing community support and sharing. It was established in January 2010 in the cellar of the old tax office in Neukölln, Berlin. Ever since it has been run by a diverse collective of artists, writers, musicians, performance artists and many more.
The main driving force and organizational principle of AF is its cooperative like structure. The distinctive feature and starting point of the organization is the common ownership of the space between the members (currently 14 people are engaged). It has a flat, non-hierarchical structure, where each of the members share responsibilities regarding the practical day-to-day maintenance of the space. In terms of artistic programming and production, the selection process is made into a responsibility of each individual member; each member contributes to the public programming in his/her own way. From a curatorial point of view, it is left open for personal decisions and responsibility, there is no democratic structure or interference from other institutions, beyond collaborations. This structure allows for flexibility and openness. It also creates conditions for unexpected meetings between different projects, practices etc.
Altes Finanzamt Collective has established a specific approach to the creative process: many projects hosted and produced are works in constant progress. The specific nature of our project space allows different stages of artistic practice to take place simultaneously; being an event space, atelier and sound studio, it also allows for instantaneous presentation of the work-in-progress publicly and reception of feedback; there is freedom for failures and errors, which become part of the learning and development process.