Studio Advisory Board

The majority of the members of the Studio Advisory Board are artists. It consists of nine voting members and up to nine representatives:

• Five members and up to five representatives (currently three representatives) are named by the bbk berlin e.V. 
• One member and one representative are named by a recognised institution of contemporary fine art in Berlin 
• Three members and up to three representatives (currently no representative) are named by Berlin Senate's Department for Culture and Europe

The members of the board and representatives are appointed for a period of 24 months by the Senator for Culture; the current term extends from January 2024 to January 2026.

The advisory board elects a chairperson and a deputy chairperson by simple majority. The chairperson chairs the respective meetings and represents the advisory committee vis-à-vis third parties. The advisory committee has a quorum if at least five members are present and the majority is formed by artists. The office of the advisory committee is the Studio Office at the kulturwerk of the bbk berlin GmbH.

Artists who use subsidised spaces cannot be members or representatives of the advisory board. Applications from members or representatives of the advisory board are excluded during their term of membership.

We would like to point out that contacting any member of the board may lead to your being unable to submit an application for a studio!

Transparency Declaration of the Studio Advisory Board

THE ADVISORY BOARD

The independent Studio Advisory Board consists primarily of artists, but also includes other experts in the field of visual arts (e.g. curators or project space providers). The honorary members and representatives of the Advisory Board are appointed by the Berlin Senator for Culture for a period of 24 months; currently 01/2024-01/2026. These are Celina Basra, Michael Bause, Layla Burger-Lichtenstein, Nuno de Brito Rocha, Nezaket Ekici, Yishay Garbasz, Karø Goldt, Franziska Harnisch, Susanne Mierzwiak, Irina Novarese, Kathy-Ann Tan, Susanne Wehr and Claudia Zweifel. Artists using subsidized spaces cannot be members or representatives of the Advisory Board. Applications by members or representatives of the Advisory Board are not possible during their membership. All Advisory Board members sign a non-disclosure and data protection agreement.

VOTING PROCEDURE

Each Advisory Board meeting is attended by five to nine voting members. Each member reviews all applications several days in advance. The aim is to find a tenant and a successor for each studio in several rounds of voting. In the first ballot (after individual screening), all Advisory Board members can vote for any number of applicants. Applicants who do not receive a vote or who cannot be classified as professionals in the field of visual arts on the basis of their submitted documents will be excluded from the process. The remaining applications will be discussed and voted on again by all Advisory Board members in alphabetical order. Based on the number of votes per applicant, this re-voting leads to a certain order of candidates. For group applications, the applicants with the most votes will be ranked. In the case of a tie, the final allocation of studios will be determined by a run-off vote after further discussion.

THE SELECTION CRITERIA

The selection is based on criteria of urgency regarding the social and professional situation of the applicants, as well as the suitability of the room and location for the respective way of working (emissions, freight elevator, ceiling height, room size, etc.). The following aspects may also be considered How long have the applicants lived and worked in Berlin? Are they active in the local scene? And how many times have they applied for a subsidized studio through the Studio Rental Program?  Artistic work requires professional work spaces. Therefore, access to this program should be open to any professional artist, regardless of background, age, gender, or artistic status.

The Advisory Board believes that the Working Space Program should be accessible to all professional artists. All the above-mentioned aspects do not follow any order of priority. They are weighed up again in each ballot. In principle, the number of Advisory Board members and their different professional orientations should ensure that all artists represented in the applications can be adequately considered in the decision-making process. In its ongoing discussions, the Advisory Board also seeks to raise awareness concerning unconscious bias and emerging stereotypes. The insights gained from this process, as well as their potential impact on the program's application process, are continuously incorporated into the work and decisions of the Advisory Board.

The Studio Advisory Board Berlin, 28.10.2020 updated 24.01.2024

[1] Applications outside the priority area of visual arts, such as from the performing arts (theatre, dance), music and literature or from applied creative professional groups, cannot be considered. In some cases, other funding instruments are available for them (see: https://kulturraeume.berlin/).

STATEMENT STUDIO ADVISORY BOARD 2023

STATEMENT STUDIO ADVISORY BOARD 2024

STATEMENT STUDIO ADVISORY BOARD 2025

Berlin has grown again: according to the latest census, around 3.9 million people live in the city. Artists only make up a small proportion of this - around 10,000 according to estimates from the bbk berlin's 2023 baseline data survey - but this small proportion is responsible for a large part of what makes Berlin so attractive: art and culture. The Berlin Senate's cost-cutting plans have been draining the water from this attractiveness for several months. 

Cuts have been made in areas that already have to make do with very little: Artists in Berlin earn an annual average of around €14,000 (KSK, see basic data survey 2023) - a figure that is €30,000 below the average annual income of German citizens (cf. average income German pension insurance). Like all people, they have to make a living from this, live, support their families and pay for work equipment and space. 

The above statistics exclude artists who are not members of the KSK because they fall below the minimum income threshold. These professional artists in Berlin, who live well below the poverty line, do not appear in any statistics and are therefore invisible to cultural policy. 

For decades, Berlin has had a studio programme for affordable workspace that is unique in Germany, and it is precisely this programme that is currently under threat of immense cuts: of the 1054 studios currently still in the workspace programme, over 200 workspaces are threatened with elimination - a reduction of almost 20%! Given the state of the Berlin property market, this means that what is gone, stays gone! We as the Studio Advisory Board would like to point this out: Studios are not a matter of luxury, but a place of work for the artist profession. As Studio Advisory Board, we cannot fight poverty in this profession, but we can emphatically draw attention to the situation. 

The impending loss of numerous subsidised studios is already creating frightening situations that we as an advisory board are experiencing more and more frequently in our meetings: We are not even in a position to offer a replacement to the artists who are losing their current subsidised workspaces. 

In addition, new applicants have even fewer opportunities to get a professional space for their production. The Berlin Senate's cuts are extremely burdensome for independent artists! Without a workspace, you can't work and therefore can't earn a living. Artists who are already living below the poverty line need a 3rd funding track of around €2.50 per m².

We would like to take this opportunity to present the current situation of the applicants at the last allocation meeting of the Studio Advisory Board on 11 and 12 February 2025: The advisory board received 219 applications for 7 subsidised studios. The following figures emerged from the sometimes dramatic descriptions of the respective situations (loss of living space due to artistic activity, cancellation of exhibitions, loss of residence status, sexual assault, etc.), which make the drastic situation clear even without the personal descriptions and serious consequences of having to work as a professional artist without a workspace: 

• Current loss of free market studios 52 
• Current loss of subsidised studios 8 
• Current loss of flat (+studio) 5 
• Currently working at home / temp. sublet 142 
• Urgent need to change subsidised studios 12 

Once again, we would like to draw attention to the rapidly deteriorating conditions and catastrophic development in the area of the workspace programme. We therefore call for an immediate stop to the reduction of subsidised studios and once again demand the creation of new locations for the subsidy programme as well as a third subsidy track for artists below the poverty line.

The Studio Advisory Board (January 2024 – January 2026): Celina Basra, Michael Bause, Layla Burger-Lichtenstein, Nuno de Brito Rocha, Nezaket Ekici, Yishay Garbasz, Karø Goldt, Franziska Harnisch, Susanne Mierzwiak, Irina Novarese, Kathy-Ann Tan, Susanne Wehr and Claudia Zweifel. 

Link: https://www.bbk-kulturwerk.de/kulturwerk/atelierbuero/atelierbeirat

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the studio advisory board.

The Studio Advisory Board, Berlin, May 2025