We don’t stop!

cuvrynale

We continue every day to work at the camp, cleaning and preparing the earth and the spirits to the CUVRYNALE.

After cleaning the entrance and the library (some blue bags are still there, we carry them outside little by little, unless some artists have a good idea about a big installation with blue garbage bags…), we are now cleaning the space in front the “gipsies’ way”. The idea today was to create a football field.

It was very nice to have been helped by the gipsy children today, although my rake is gone…but ok, we will not stop for such a little thing.

Maybe there is still hope to achieve a balance in this multicultural anarchic village.

The calling for everyone wants to participate to the CUVRYNALE is always open.

We are waiting for people of good will and creativity!

 

fuoco

Yesterday, when I came back to the camp, I found firefighters and police at the entrance: one of the houses on the big way burned.

Nobody was inside and nobody no one was injured. The fire in the camp is not something new, as everybody know also last summer the big teepee near the river burned, but this time everybody is sure, it was not to do something again somebody and it was not because some fighting inside the camp…well it happened.

But the good thing it was seeing the people of FreeCuvry to collaborate together to save what they could, even the gipsies helped. Maybe it was the first time were we felt to be a community. Of course we would have preferred to discover this sense of community in another way…

Anyway there is no big fire that can stop us now! The preparations for the CUVRYNALE continue!

Today we will continue to clean the camp.

Everybody is welcome in FreeCuvry!

Today we are still here

LAST-3

the refugees on the roof of the school

And for today FreeCuvry is save from an eviction.

Without police in the camp we were free to clean and order, starting from the library. After some hours of work we managed to put all the garbage in blue bags that we will kindly give to the city like a present, if the administration will be so kind to come and take them every morning in the corner of the street.

While we were cleaning we found all kind of stuff, even a vacuum cleaner! And don’t tell me that it was of FreeCuvry’s people! Nobody will trust you, since in Cuvry nobody knows what to do with a vacuum, unless someone has the power to generate electricity…

Today also a crew from the rbb TV came in FreeCuvry to make a reportage, that we didn’t watch because we don’t have TV (for the same reason we don’t have a vacuum). I just hope they didn’t make another bad report because we really don’t need it anymore.

Meanwhile the eviction of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule in Kreuzberg. We were there half an hour before and there was the demonstration with music and lot of people were screaming “Freedom!” and supporting the refugees.
Do not give up!

I hope when it will arrive this day for FreeCuvry the people from outside will support us too, but I hope it is a very far day.

At least it will be not tomorrow.

LAST-4 LASTLAST-2

 

CUVRYNALE CALLING

cuvrynale calling

Today there was a meeting in FreeCuvry where we spoke about the louder and louder voices about eviction.

Soooooooo we decide that it’s really time to do something big and good in FreeCuvry.

It’s time of CUVRYNALE!!!

The FreeCuvry summer festival. We will clean the camp, organize workshops, exhibitions, concerts…but we need you too!

It’s open the calling for all the artists, musician, jugglers, acrobats, clowns and people with good humor and desire to create something beautiful: come in FreeCuvry and do it!

Everybody is welcome. We are just waiting for you!

FACEBOOK CUVRYNALE OPEN CALLING

Media Attention

The attention on FreeCuvry from media and newspapers continues in these days.

Just yesterday we spoke with two journalist who will write in the next days articles about Cuvry; one was from Tip Berlin (the article will publish on the 3rd July) and the other one from Zeit Online.

Just 15 minutes ago I spoke with a journalist from the Tagesspiegel, he was in the camp waiting for a scoop about the eviction, because he heard voices about a possible evacuation today…I’m sorry for the lost scoop, but it seems like this will not happen today, the police is too busy with the Gerhart-Hauptmann-School, occupied by the refuges.
Two eviction in one day? Too much for Berlin, isn’t it?

So we stay still here today.

I will never be tired to say “Everybody is welcome to visit us!”

We need you to come here to see with your eyes what is really FreeCuvry.

 

 

Discuvry House Market

market-anim

Eviction or not eviction: that is the question.

While nobody knows this so feared date, we can not stay without doing anything. Rather we are more stimulated to do something creative and good for FreeCuvry.

Let’s start doing the Discuvry House Market!

We will sell all the chairs, tables, pots for plants and whatever we realized in this time working here in FreeCuvry and you could also enjoy a tea or coffee at our terrace surrounded by green.

As you know (or you imagine) we don’t have electricity here, so everything we create here is created using just hand-saw, hammer and nails. A little bit old style? But this is what makes our work so special.

If you don’t believe me, come here and see with your own eyes!

Come to visit in our house every Saturday of July from 11.00 to 18.00.

Opening day Saturday 28.07.2014!

FreeCuvry_CuvryStraße 50-51, 10997 Berlin

entrance corner CuvryStr. – SchlesischesStr.

1000sedie

Eviction noise

planee

It seems like an eviction in FreeCuvry will arrive soon.

Already some weeks ago in the camp there were some voices about a probably eviction in this month of June, but now these voices become every day real. All the inhabitants of Cuvry have seen in the last days the police’s controls increase, every day lot of helicopters fly over the camp, yesterday one of them did 5 times a circle, most probably to take good pictures of the all field to can have the exactly number of the houses and an idea of the quantity of the people who live here.
I can already tell it to you .

The houses in FreeCuvry are 50 or more, about 20 of them are gipsies’ house. If you think that in every house there are at least 2 people, but in a gipsies’ one there is a family of 4 or 5 people, this means that in FreeCuvry live between 100 and 150 or more people.

So Berlin, are you ready to kick in the street more than 150 people like it were nothing?

I also understand the gipsies are a recent problem here in Germany. Since the Romania and Bulgaria have entered in the EU, the borders opened and the gipsies arrived here. They have lived in Italy since long time, because the less controls to enter in my own country or for the more tolerance for immigrants. A Roma camp is also near my family house in Catania. Italian people know them maybe better, at least they see gipsies everyday in the italian cities so they know their way to live. But for german people this can be a new wrong life-style. Even Yuki was totally surprise when he discovered the first time on which way the gipsies live, cause in Japan gipsies have not yet arrived.

But it is not so easy, it is not with a eviction that Berlin will solve the gipsies problem. They live in this way since centuries or thousands years, they don’t really care if their houses would be destroyed, them will find another place and build another 100 time new houses.

But I can also say that FreeCuvry is the only place where I saw gipsies from Romania living together with gipsies from Bulgaria and Spain, and with Poles, Italians, Germans, Australians, Dutch, South Americans, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Japaneses and all the people from around the world who live in FreeCuvry.

I don’t know if this mix of culture will arrive to a balance for the creation of a organized village, but some months or even one year are not enough to know it.

 

The owner of the field, Artur Süsskind, has already ordered the evacuation to the police. They are preparing it in these day.

So it’s written in a article of Neues Deutschland.

But yesterday also a journalist of the Morgen Post came in Cuvry to interview us and make some pictures of our project. Her name is Uta Keseling.
She told us she is going to write an article on the weekend newspaper about all the empty areas in Berlin, talking about the positive and negative sides. I hope our project will be in the positive ones.
The article will be publish on this sunday.

 

We know in FreeCuvry there are huge money interests, I’m an architect and Yuki is an artist, we are not activists neither politics. In this kind of world and society we can not win against so big power. We can just continue to work every day, do what we can do, create something beautiful around us, hope to give and take good and positive energies from all the people and from all the spaces we live.

And maybe one day something will change.

So if you also think like us, please visit us in these days that could be the last, and help us to keep the good that we still see here.

Spotlight on FreeCuvry

In these days the attention on FreeCuvry increases, Cuvry Brache for the medias and the city.

Just 3 days ago a not so nice article was published on the supposed “left newspaper” Taz (so they define themselves).

In the camp there are some voices about an imminent demolition, probably in this month, but still we have not any official news. I don’t know how this kind of problem works exactly in Germany, but I suppose they will give has an advice before arrive with the bulldozers to kick all of us out of the field, I suppose they will give us the time to take and move our stuff…I don’t know.

FreeCuvry is a private field and illegal occupation, but the city allowed us to stay there and built our houses till now, no police came inside to say us we were not allowed, and they saw us building, they have never said one word.

So maybe for the law they can just arrive and kick us out, but I can not believe Berlin’s people will allow a so brutal evacuation.

 

But there is a positive side of all this attention on FreeCuvry.

Some days ago one woman came in the camp, she work in theater and she asked us if she could do a big theatrical performance in August, using all the space in the camp, from the river to the houses.

So also two musicians came later, they were from Netherlands and they would have liked to organize a big concert (with about 35 musicians) in FreeCuvry in the end of August.

We answered to both that it will be a pleasure for us have cultural events in FreeCuvry.

So we will see what will happen this summer, if we will still be here.

music

Clement’s branches

rami

In FreeCuvry this spring a new important neighbor arrived, his name is Clement.

I say important because he has a special feature: he loves the garbage.

It is not a case that he took the Tommaso’s place in the camp, and the day when he came, cleaning the space from the rest of Tommaso’s stuff, he told us, “There is no garbage, everything can be useful”.

At first his way can seem similar to Tommaso’s way, but he has another style. He doesn’t collect every kind of stuff and he has not messy problem, he just try to save most things possible from throwing away.

Some days ago he had big discussion with some polish guys because he brought the gipsies’ garbage near the library. Clement is a really peaceful person, he is not able to fight neither to defend himself. You must be really stupid and coward to start a fight with a man like him.

There are some stupid and coward people in FreeCuvry.

But I want to thank Clement, because some days ago he brought in the camp a lot of tree branches, taken from the street. At first I asked myself what we should have done with those. But Yuki started to use the leaves to make fertilizer, like he learned in Kenya, and he gave me a branch without bark. It was very beautiful, white, smooth and delicate. So I started to take off all the bark from the branches, before they became dry and it would be not possible anymore.

I still don’t know what I will do with it, if furnitures or sculptures, I think every piece will be something different, because every piece is unique.

Anyway thanks to Clement to have given me this beautiful material.

rami-3  rami-5rami-4

Gipsy Conquest

We would like to thanks all the people who came, helped and enjoyed our work at the Japan Syndrome festival, a special thanks to the HAU staff, Annemie, Jana and Benny, to our friends who have come and help us with the cooking, Kanta, Sasha and Sandy. Thursday was the last evening and we were very happy to have so much people around us, I cooked lentil soup, two big pots and it was everything eaten 🙂 it was very nice having our neighbors from FreeCuvry as well.

Changing topic….

gipsy

The gipsy street nowadays

I would to like to write today about a component of FreeCuvry a little bit problematic: the gipsies.

I say problematic for one main reason, because they are a really close community and since they have been in Cuvry a real and clear dialog has been almost impossible, also because they speak just bulgarian or romenian and a little part of them spanish. Anyway, the language would be not a insuperable problem if a person wanted really communicate.

They arrived in Cuvry the first time this winter, they were just a little family and they build two little houses. But during the winter they had bid discussion with the Poles, mainly for some thefts inside the camps, so during the winter there was the “gipsy war”, and their houses were destroyed more times.

In spring they came back, this time more numerous and stronger, and more conscientious and prudent, they spoke with the habitants and said they would have not stolen inside the camp and behaved good. So they started to build their house, at first one, then two, then five, then in just two weeks they built 15 houses. They completely destroyed the Pagoda, the construction for common uses near the beach, to steal all the material for building their houses. It’s very difficult to speak with them and explain that FreeCuvry is not a gipsy camp, there must be a balance and they can not build everywhere without speaking with the neighbors. They are very fast to build, and they always use the excuse of the children for their need of more and more space, more and more houses. Now a day in FreeCuvry there are about 50 houses (I say “about” because almost everyday there is a new construction) and 20 of them are gipsies’ houses.

We made a reunion to speak all together about this topic, we invited the gipsies to partecipate…there was nobody of them.

I asked to the Bulgarians to not build a house in the Pagoda place, because we wanted to build it again…the day after there was already a construction.

I don’t know how will be, continuing in this way FreeCuvry will be really a gipsy camp. We can not stop them, they are very cohesive and they live in this way since generations. But maybe we can create a canal to communicate with them and working together.

Maybe.

Little by little.

gipsy-3

The Pagoda ruins in March

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The Pagoda ruins in March

gipsy-4

The gipsies started to build in March

gipsy-2

A view of the gipsy street behind the big teepee

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