Annem işçi
Who Sews the Red Flags?

This group exhibition takes up the interrelationships of artists and the guest worker movement in Germany of the 1970s. It unites the perspectives of migrants with efforts of white, German artists to show solidarity as well as personal, poetic, activist, and documentary points of departure.

In West Germany, strikes without union leadership and support are called “wildcat” strikes. Such strikes often occur against the will of the union, for example at the Pierburg auto parts supplier, where women protest discriminatory low-wage groups in 1973. In it 1,700 women—mostly from Greece, Spain, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Italy—fought for their rights. Setting out from that historical event, the exhibition Annem işçi: Wer näht die roten Fahnen? (My Mother Is a Worker: Who Sews the Red Flags?) traces how artists of the 1970s created works to support the female migrant workers (that small, multiple minority where the group of women and the group of so-called guest workers overlap). Annem işçi: Wer näht die roten Fahnen? tells of direct and indirect coalitions between “guest workers” and “artists” against discrimination, racism, and violence.

Curated by guest curator Gürsoy Doğtaş

Artists

Nuray Demir, Semra Ertan, Mehmet Güler, Gülsün Karamustafa, Asimina Paradissa, Monika Sieveking, Gerdt Marian Siewert, Nil Yalter und Serpil Yeter

Exhibition Supporters

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