Refugees’ Library

Refugees’ Library, 2013-2019
Dead Souls / German Money and Migration Politics in the World, 2014- 2015
Wall painting 4m x 11m

installation view at:

The Kyiv International – Kyiv Biennial 2017, Visual Culture Research Center, Kyiv

2. Berliner Herbstsalon, Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin, 2015

After the butcher, Berlin, 2015

Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, 2014

Refugees’ Library

Refugees’ Library is an archive of drawings and texts produced by Marina Naprushkina between 2013 and 2019 in the courtrooms of the Berlin Administrative Court in Moabit. Naprushkina attended asylum hearings, documented them artistically, and made the material freely available. The individuals’ names and other personal details have been changed to protect their confidentiality. Freelance translators translated the texts into a variety of languages, enabling the refugees to use the material themselves.

Online archve: https://refugeeslibrary.wordpress.com/
Tranlators into 9 languages: Tobias Weihmann, Nele Van den Berghe, Leaticia Kossligk, Markus Baathe, David Ey, Anna Toczyska, Charlotte Stromberg, Judith Geffert, Sara Dutch, Sarah Neis, Josie Nguessi, Anouk De Bast, Bojana Perišić, Elvira Veselinović, Ruth Altenhofer, Inara Gabdurakhmanova, Iliyana Braykova, Friederike Großmann, Christiane Clever, Zoë Miller, Lydia White, Paul Girard, Marie-Charlotte Ricarda Deyda, Leonhard Elias Klank, Solenn Guillou, Joan Somers Donnelly, Enrico Boccaccini, Samaneh Asadi Nowghabi, Mohammad Ali Dawwa.
The book “Closed to the Public” is the final publication out of the project Refugees’ Library.

Six court hearings with female appellants were selected for the book “Closed to the Public”, the final publication out of the project Refugees’ Library.. It is in German and English, with individual court transcripts translated into Arabic, Persian, and Russian. Refugees’ Library has been shown in numerous international exhibitions. It is an archive on subjects of migration, asylum law, and society.

Dead Souls / German Money and Migration Politics in the World
The wall painting Dead Souls (2014) shows the enlargement of the EU borders and the key provisions relating to its asylum and migration policy.
For six decades of successful reconciliation policy, the European Union has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But what kind of peace does the EU make?
The EU’s failed asylum policy leads to serious economic and social inequalities. The EU wants to win the markets in the refugees’ home countries, but limits the free movement of persons. The borders are so sealed that asylum seekers actually barely reach ‘the safe shore.’