The pearl within

Gamal Nkrumah stumbles across an extraordinary building dedicated to promoting cross-cultural dialogue in the heart of Berlin
Fondly nick-named the pregnant oyster because of its bizarre and, it has to be said, obtrusive architectural design, proudly reaching upwards into the sky, The House of World Cultures has over the past decade become almost as famous a Berlin landmark as Checkpoint Charlie or the Brandenburg Gate.
The communicative openness of the foyer, currently undergoing renovation, with its opulent grounds, including the inviting Mirror Pond with its twin pools, and lawns where exhibitions are regularly staged and the imposing Butterfly sculpture by Henry Moore, all add to the dramatic ambiance of the place.
Indoors, expansive exhibition halls and the sumptuous auditorium, with state-of- the-art conference equipment that boasts a simultaneous interpreting system for six languages serving all 1,040 seats, is no less impressive. Indeed, the auditorium has developed into one of Berlin's major concert halls. But films are regularly shown and dance and theatrical productions staged.
To crown it all is the roof terrace, which is one of the city's most popular venues for the holding of open-air concerts in summer. The perfect setting for many an inter-cultural exchange.
The House of World Cultures, which lies, quite literally, at the geographical heart of Berlin, squarely facing the celebrated Tiergarten Park and standing halfway between two of the German capital's most recognisable landmarks -- the Berlin Zoo and Alexander Platz -- is easily accessible. The imposing new Federal German Reichstag, with British architect Norman Foster's majestic, and ultra-modern -- dome, the official residence of the German president, Belle Vue, and the Kanzleramt, or chancellor's office, are but a stone's throw away.
However, the onus is on performances and exhibitions, and the programme showcases work that remains on the outside of mainstream German culture. Music, dance, theatre, exhibitions, films, readings and symposiums -- art lovers, and greater familiarity with African, Asian, Pacific and South and Central American arts and cultures frequent the pregnant oyster, which has firmly established itself as Berlin's cultural place to be.
"Where is my heimat? In the job I enjoy, in the country of my origin which I left behind, or in the country I adopted as my new home?" asks Anna Jocobi, media officer at the House of World Cultures.
(There are certain ideas that do not render themselves easily to translation. The subtlety of meaning and the original resonance is impossible to convey. And the German language appears to have more than its fair share of such untranslatable concepts. Heimat is one such concept -- it might roughly be rendered as the place where one can feel at home.)
Jacobi's aim she explains, is to make the pregnant oyster a window of opportunity, a heimat, for artists from around the world. Contacting, networking and liaising with artists from outside Europe, and from ethnic minorities within, "we generally prefer the unconventional, and shy away from state-sponsored artists whose expression tends to be limited by the dictates of an overpowering bureaucracy," says Jacobi, breaking into a hearty laugh. "We sponsor and invite those artists that eke a living from the margins of society who are, by virtue, free from the canons of national cultural directives."
The House of World Cultures endeavours, too, to embody aspects of a more recent German zeitgeist. In conjunction with Canada's McGill University, Montreal, and Religion Counts, a Washington DC-based non-governmental organisation, the House of World Cultures convened an international conference on religion and human rights last week. "Extreme interpretations of religion have repeatedly been shown to endorse views antagonistic to human rights," explained Jacobi.
"Globalisation has been accompanied by a new drive in evangelical and missionary activities," Jacobi said. "We can assess the depth and impact of such developments and examine the ramifications."
Whereas the West stresses its role as an agent and catalyst of modernisation across its policy implementations, many other societies claim their own right to define modernity for themselves, developing it out of their own traditions, whether secular or religious, argues Jacobi.
So is this a clash of cultures? Not so, she insists: "Our intention is to catch the eye, capture the imagination and lift up the spirit of locals and foreigners alike, by allowing them the opportunity to sample the cultural expressions of other peoples -- especially those who have cultures seemingly very different from our own."
"Next year we focus on a dialogue on Islam. There is an upsurge of interest in Islam in Germany. Books on Islam are best-sellers today. There is an ongoing national discussion on Islam in particular and religion generally and whether it is right to protect all practices and ritual customs of all religions."
She goes on to elaborate the subject.
"Inequality between the sexes is sometimes being defended on religious grounds. We do not try to impose our viewpoint. We simply aim at giving a chance to the unconventional artists who perhaps find it difficult to develop their artistic expression to the full. We recently had the Algerian Houria Aïchi singing religious chants, traditionally a strictly male preserve. These are some of the issues that were tackled at the conference on religion and human rights."
When it first opened shop, in 1989, the House of World Cultures busied itself with projecting the cultures of peoples considered primitive, not a terribly advanced notion in itself. Things, though, have improved significantly since those early days.
"This is a place of international encounters," Jacobi asserted. And one of the most interesting of the institution's recent encounters was the exchange of ideas and experiences between Hans Christoph Buch, a German novelist and essayist who lives in Berlin, and Ato Sekyi-Otu, a Ghanaian-born academic who teaches at York University, Canada. An authority on Franz Fanon, Seyki-Otu published Fanon's Dialectic Experience in 1997. Buch's most recent publication is Caine and Abel in Africa "The debate was enthralling, at times heart-stopping. Audiences were visibly moved and engrossed in the debate." Certainly, the institution seems to have come a long way.
Towards a Post-Apartheid Political Morality: Fanonian Visions, the theme of the Buch and Sekyi-Otu seminar, is part of a conscious effort to develop from its modest beginnings. But there remains the question of finance, of funding such an ambitious cultural agenda.
"We are poor in comparison with other German institutions," says Jacobi. While the ongoing exhibitions are free, certain shows, performances and exhibitions are not. Large companies sponsor special events, while the federal ministries of culture and foreign affairs provide a basic budget. Fund-raising activities have become an essential feature of the institution's agenda.
I took one last glance at the pregnant oyster, that most extraordinary of buildings, the construction of which was begun in 1957, silhouetted against the naked trees of the Tiergarten and heavy skies of the German winter. The oyster, I reckoned, greatly adds to the cosmopolitanism of post-Cold War Berlin.
Recommend this page
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
Send a letter to the Editor