One of the LUCKY installations is a small lavender desk where you can sit down and read a zine, compiled by Inga Zimprich of Feministische Gesundheitsrecherchegruppe (Feminist Health Care Research Group), about joining the Künstlersozialkasse (KSK). The KSK provides partial insurance support for professional artists, with the exception of curators, like visual artists, writers, performers, designers, actors, and musicians.
The zine is an instructional manual for English-speakers that explains the entire German application. It also includes motivational strategies to help banish the taboo of publicly addressing financial precarity—and of asking for help when in need. Despite how essential our health is, we often neglect our bodies because the bureaucracy standing between us and the care we need is too great. Additionally, some applicants face the real chance of discrimination based on their perceived race, gender, or the passport they carry. We at COVEN BERLIN decided the zine should be made available for download beyond the nGbK gallery walls so folks can equip themselves with the information and motivation to get the healthcare they need.
We recommend checking out the Feminist Health Care Research Group, too. Along with Zimprich, they are Alice Münch and Julia Bonn; a trio of Berlin-based mothers who meet regularly to research and archive radical feminist forms of healthcare and therapy from 1970’s and 1980’s West Germany, and then self-publish their harvest into zines for wider accessibility.
Click here to download the “Join the Künstlersozialkasse (KSK)” zine.
Please feel free to share with us if this was helpful or if you have any other kind of feedback!
Words by Harley Aussoleil
Harley Aussoleil lives in Berlin where she writes, dances, feels, and works with asylum seekers as an interpreter. She has collaborated with COVEN BERLIN since summer 2014 as a co-curator and organizer.
