German for Newcomers

Workshop & Publication

Fall 2016

In a German language workshop called GERMAN FOR NEWCOMERS, refugees, immigrants and expats are invited to learn and improve German by writing useful teaching material for themselves and others. The roles of the student and teacher is shifted and the participants’ will transform their own experiences with the German language from private and public places and institutions into a GRAMMAR BOOK and a series of film scene tutorials, which will be made public Fall 2016. 

The GERMAN FOR NEWCOMERS workshop is organised by artist Stine Marie Jacobsen in collaboration with social worker Nastaran Tajeri-Foumani and drama teacher Mirella Galbiatti both from social work organisation Gangway, language & counselling center for young refugees and migrants BBZ and Aktion Mensch.

The GERMAN FOR NEWCOMERS grammar book will be designed by Fuchs Borst and published by Broken Dimanche Press.

More information coming soon

Stine Marie Jacobsen (b. 1977), is a conceptual artist working to decode individual and collective violence through participatory means. Focusing on language, gender and psychology, she uses film as a starting point to create performative experiments and platforms for new ways of looking at ethics, identity, fear and trust. She lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin, graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts with an MFA and a BFA from CalArts, the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, USA. Some of her notable solo shows have been at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, 2012, Berlin, Kohinoor, 2010, Copenhagen, District Kunst- und Kulturförderung, 2014, Berlin, Galway Arts Center, 2014, Galway, Ireland and Overgaden institute of contemporary art, 2015, Copenhagen, Denmark. Selected group shows consist of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Momentum Biennale 2013, Moss, Norway, Either Or Nikolaj Kunsthal, 2013, Copenhagen, Idyll Turku Biennale, Turku, Finland, The 10th OPEN International Performance Festival, 2009, Beijing.

In order to give participants a collaborative and dialogical space, Stine creates open structured sociocultural and participatory projects with clearly defined themes. With a focus in themes such as film, language, gender, violence, death, taboos, anonymity, psychology, the artist conducts performative experiments and creates platforms for critical thinking and new ways of looking at ethics, identity, control, fear and trust. 

Over the years Stine has conceptualised and worked on a number of participatory projects that are within these parameters, like for example Direct Approach, where participants are asked to retell their most violent film scene memory and choose whether they would play victim, perpetrator or bystander and why. Stine has organised and facilitated many Direct Approach workshops in Germany, Ireland, Colombia and Denmark. In 2014 the project was a 6 month workshop at District Kunst- und Kulturförderung in Berlin in collaboration with social work organisations Gangway and Streetcollege and was jury selected for Berlin Art Week. 

Another example is Mann beißt Hund (a remake of the Belgian film C’est arrivé près de chez vous), without actors. Alongside the use of film as a law system, with lawyers the artist also organised court cases with teenagers, where real lawsuits were rejudged and in workshops rights in private and public space were reflected on and discussed. 

In 2015, Stine was awarded an innovative educational grant from Node curatorial studies in Berlin and in 2016 she will receive a peace fellowship and professional Conflict Resolution certificate from the Rotary Club.