History

 

The Asylum Dialogue Tank (ADT)

The idea to establish the Trampoline House was born during a series of workshops titled the Asylum Dialogue Tank (ADT). The workshops were conceived and conducted by socially engaged artists/curators Morten Goll, Joachim Hamou, and Tone Olaf Nielsen and took place in the Danish asylum centers Kongelunden and Sandholm from January 5 – March 1, 2009. The ADT workshops brought together 20 residents from different Danish asylum centers located on Zealand and 20 art, architecture, social work, journalist, and anthropology students from all over the country. The aim was to analyze the problematics of the Danish asylum system and to discuss how to better the living conditions for asylum seekers in Denmark. Crucial to ADT was the effort to allow the criticisms of asylum center residents to be heard, and to use artistic-activist methods to develop alternative solutions in collaboration with the residents. Click here to view photo and video documentation from the workshops.

ADT soon concluded that any attempt to socially re-design the asylum centers would be fruitless. It was not the architecture of the centers as such that was the problem. It was the number of years asylum seekers are forced to live in them without knowing if/when they will be granted asylum/deported – and without being able to work, educate themselves, and build relations to Danish society while they wait.

Acknowledging that it will take years to change the Danish refugee and asylum policies and find alternatives to the asylum camps, ADT’s immediate answer to this inhumane situation was to self-organize and work to establish: 1) An asylum seekers’ street paper, and 2) An independent user-driven culture house, where asylum seekers and Danish citizens could meet, share experiences, and learn from one another. Both initiatives would have a double effect. They would provide asylum seekers with the agency and tools needed for them to better their social and legal situation. And they would inform the Danish public about the conditions in the Danish asylum centers in an attempt to motivate them to work to change the policies.

The Temporary Trampoline House and visAvis

Following the workshops, ADT thus borrowed the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art’s student gallery, Exhibition Space Q, in Copenhagen from March 5 – 15, 2009, in order to test how such a user-driven culture house could work. The house was collectively named The Trampoline House – the house being the trampoline that would provide its users with the support and energy needed for them to change their situation. The intention was to create a reversed space of exception to the camp’s space of exception: a reversed space in which asylum seekers would temporarily be re-equipped with the basic civil rights that they are deprived of in the camps.

The house had a Café, a Children’s Corner, and a Hair Salon and hosted language and dance classes, legal counseling and study groups, film screenings and video workshops, debates and lectures, flea/swop market and guided tours to some of the Danish asylum centers. Attracting 50-100 visitors a day from all spectra of Danish society, the project was huge success and testified to the great need for such a self-organized space. Click here to view photo documentation, features, and reviews from the temporary Trampoline House.

During this time, the first editorial steps to the street paper were also taken. Titled visAvis, the paper was to feature articles on migration and asylum written, edited, and produced by a group of asylum seekers and Danish cultural producers. On June 5, 2009, the first issue of visAvis was published. Summer 2011, the fifth issue was launched. During the course of the first four issues, visAvis has developed into an in-depth journal featuring essays and visuals by the visAvis group and international contributors. Click here to view covers from the four issues.

The Permanent Trampoline House

By the time the temporary Trampoline House closed, ADT had grown into a large network counting more than 65 members and 100 volunteers, who collectively decided to form a self-governing institution that should work to raise funds in order to establish a permanent Trampoline House in Copenhagen.

Thanks to the hard work of more than 50 volunteering asylum seekers with various professional backgrounds from all over the world and more than 50 Danish artists, activists, lawyers, social workers, writers, and theorists, in October 2010 ADT finally received a generous grant from the OAK Foundation Denmark, enabling ADT to rent a permanent space in Skyttegade 3, in the intercultural neighborhood, Nørrebro, in Copenhagen.

The ADT board appointed Morten Goll as daily Creative Coordinator, Tone Olaf Nielsen as Program Coordinator, and first Nabil Latif and later Søren Rafn as PR & Outreach Coordinator for a 2,5 year period. Titled ‘coordinators’ rather than ‘directors’ or ‘administrators, the responsibility of the house coordinators is to coordinate and make possible all the wishes and ideas circulating amongst the users of the house.

On October 13, the house coordinators invited ADT members and new volunteers to a big brainstorm meeting on what the house should look like and what services and activities it should offer. Then followed a very busy time renovating and decorating the house, designing invitations and posters, and programming activities and events for the first couple of months. On November 27, 2010, the permanent Trampoline House officially opened its doors to the public. Click here to view photo documentation from the permanent house.