Samie Blasingame (she/her) is a researcher, facilitator and activist focused on sustainable food systems and environmental justice. She is active in the Berlin-based, BIPoC environmental and climate justice collective Black Earth, Greenbuzz and a member of the Black Brown Berlin network. She holds an MA in Environmental Policy and Planning from Freie Universität Berlin and a BA in International Studies from California University, Long Beach.

Roundtable: Undoing Discrimination? Diverse in Berlin?

29th May 01.00 – 02.30 pm | Miriam Camara, Sanni Est, Kenny Fries, Rhea Ramjohn Moderation: Samie Blasingame

Diversity is a "must-have" in the identity of most Berlin cultural institutions. Sometimes they even invest resources for the multicolored flag that flies over them. So are diversity measures just another set of methods of solidifying what they claim to change? This panel, moderated by Samie Blasingame, puts it to the test: what does it look like in Berlin's cultural landscape? What are the inconspicuous formal routines, the small informal habits, the official and unofficial rules that create the feeling of running into a wall that one claims is not there? Are there any institutions somewhere that are undercutting the perfidious game and are there any impulses, strategies, methods, or people that are at least beginning to dismantle the supposedly non-existent walls? Are there perhaps even already best practice examples?