Artists & Projects

Aid A  has funds to support individual artists and groups who are entitled to benefit from AID A support in keeping with the association rules.

Please click here for the application form

Please note that the financial means for the funding year 2023 have already been exhausted. However, please contact us if you need support. We can connect you with partner institutions.

Aleksandra Kovaleva

Aid A supports the Ukrainian artist and book author Aleksandra Kovaleva with a 6-month literary scholarship for her second book, the novel The Groundwater about the Crimean Tatars, which she is currently writing in France.

Aleksandra Kovaleva was born in Crimea in 1984. She grew up in Kiev and, after completing her theatre studies, worked as a cultural manager and press officer for various cultural institutions, including the Molodist International Film Festival Kiev and the Odessa International Film Festival. Since the age of 25, she has worked as an artist, participated in numerous collective exhibitions and also exhibited her art projects individually. She is currently writing her novel The Groundwater in France.

Melika Balali

Aid A is supporting Iranian-Scottish women’s rights activist, painter, poet and wrestler Melika Balali with her collection of paintings and poems entitled Women, Life, Freedom.
Melika Balali was born on 27 December 1999 in Shahr-e Kord in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, where she also grew up. Even in her childhood, art and literature were her passions. She won the best poster design award at the Made in Arkansas Film Festival for the short film “Limit” (2017) directed by Javad Dararei. In 2019, she moved to the United States and later to Scotland where she started wrestling. She has always loved freestyle wrestling, but she could not practice the sport in her home country due to Islamic rules. In her poems, she illustrates and elaborates on the suffering of women under discriminatory laws.

Ivan Zubarev

Aid A has covered the cost of materials for visual artist Ivan Zubarev to create a two-metre high sculpture that he will exhibit with the design and activist team that created Lady Liberty Hong Kong. The activists are currently preparing an exhibition with ten artists in 13 cities on four continents.

Ivan Zubarev was born in 1996 in Vyborg. After studying sculpture at the St. Petersburg Art Academy, he attended the Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia from 2020 to 2022. Currently, Ivan Zubarev fled Russia to escape Putin and the war in his country and came to Germany via Turkey. In Berlin, he is studying at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst and attending a German course. Ivan Zubarev’s medium is sculpture, and he asks himself about the growing distance between artist and artwork through the use of new technologies: “By adapting art to the social and material realities of a changing world, I am exploring the structure of modern life. Including shifting boundaries between art, design, architecture, technologies and personality.”

Sahar Ajdamsani

Aid A is supporting Iranian musician, poet, writer and activist Sahar Ajdamsani to produce a video for the song “I am a Women”, which was created to protest in Iran. The video will be released on 25 November, the International Women’s Day against Violence.

Sahar Ajdamsani was born in 1996. She began writing poetry at the age of eight. In her now award-winning works, she focuses on issues such as world peace, equality, women’s rights and the environment. Despite the challenges of pursuing a career as an artist in Iran, where it is forbidden for women to be musicians, Sahar Ajdamsani has received international recognition for her work. Her poems have been translated into English, Hindi, Italian, Spanish and Bengali, she has been invited to poetry festivals in ten countries and has travelled on various concert tours

Omid Rezaee

Aid A supports the Iranian journalist and author Omid Rezaee with a literary scholarship for his first novel in German language.

Omid Rezaee, born and raised in a small town in northwestern Iran, has been interested in writing and storytelling since his early school days. He first came into conflict with the local administration because of critical reporting in the school magazine he founded. For his mechanical engineering studies, Omid went to Rasht, where he founded a student magazine and worked as its editor-in-chief. The critical topics did not suit the government and Omid was arrested. He fled illegally to Iraq in 2012 and reported from there – also in close and professional cooperation with Iranian exile media in the USA, Great Britain and the Netherlands, among others – on the situation in northern Iraq and Kurdistan. Omid came to Berlin on a humanitarian visa in 2014. After completing his training in media, film and media management at The Hamburg Media School, he has been writing as a freelance author for German media (taz, Tagesspiegel, Welt) since 2016, mainly about Iran, migration and Iranian exiles. In February 2017, he launched his own multilingual website, Perspektive Iran. He was a fellow at Google-News-Lab and a staff member at the hand-picked journalism platform piqd.de. In 2021, he completed the part-time master’s programme Digital Journalism at the Hamburg Media School and was supported by a part-scholarship from the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius. In 2019 and 2020, he was the editorial director of the multilingual news platform Amal-Hamburg. Omid is currently studying political science and sociology at FernUni-Hagen and works as a freelance journalist.

Photo: Jann Wilken

Yildiz Çakar

Aid A supports the Kurdish writer and dramatist Yildiz Çakar with a literary scholarship for her third novel Hangar Five.

Yildiz Çakar, born in Amed/Diyarbakır, worked as a correspondent and editor for Kurdish newspapers. In 2016, she was the director of the Kurdish Writers Association in Amed/Diyarbakır. She published her first volumes of poetry, Goristana Stêrkan (Graveyard of Stars) and Deri (The Door), in 2004 and 2012, respectively. This was followed by an edition of short stories (Duhok, 2008), an encyclopedia about the city of Amed (2012), and prose texts based on Saint Avesta published under the title Leylanok (The Mirage, 2014). Her two most recent literary works are the novels Gerîneka Guernîcayê (2016) and Ev Rê Naçe Bihuştê (2019). Yildiz Çakar has also written plays and monologues for the Gorki Theater in Berlin and the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, among others.

She is currently working on her third novel, Hangar Five.

Photo: Amadeus

 

Nazli Karabiyikoğlu

At the suggestion of Aid A, the Turkish author Nazli Karabiyikoğlu will participate in the Writers-in-Exile program of the German PEN Center. The three-year scholarship will start in January 2021.

Nazli Karabiyikoğlu
, born in Turkey, currently lives in Georgia due to political persecution. She was one of the co-founders of the #MeToo movement in the Turkish publishing industry, from which she was then excluded. After studying Turkish language and literature at Bogazici University, Karabıyıkoğlu has published five books in Turkish and recently completed the translation of three new books for international publication. She has already won six literary awards in her country and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for Fiction in 2019. Her book Subdermal Sky was awarded the UnCollected Press/Raw Art Review Full Length Book of Short Stories prize.
 

 

Javad Daraei

With the financial support of Aid A, Iranian director Javad Daraei could finish his film Metamorphosis in the Slaughterhouse, which will premiere in November 2020 at the Kansas International Film Festival. Aid A association covered the costs for color grading and sound. In addition, the director received a grant from the Artist Protection Fund to study in the USA.

Javad Daraei was born in Khorramabad in 1992. He was very interested in film and cinema from an early age and studied at the University of Tehran after finishing high school. As a student, Javad began making his first short films, I Don’t Like Her (2016) and Limit (2017), which were running at numerous festivals worldwide and were awarded several prizes. Metamorphosis in the Slaughterhouse is his feature film debut.

Jalal Rohani

The actress Alexa Benkert – she plays the leading role in Jalal Rohani‘s film The Lady with Purple Shoes – contacted Aid A and reported on the difficult and life-threatening situation of the Afghan director in his country. Aid A contacted the Martin Roth Initiative, which succeeded in bringing Jalal to Germany at the end of 2019. The filmmaker currently works at the European Film Market in Berlin.

Sayed Jalal Rohani was born in Kabul in 1989. After studying fine arts and film directing, he was an active member of the Cine-Club of the French Cultural Institute (IFA) in Afghanistan. Rohani has participated in various workshops sponsored by the British Council and the Goethe Institute, among others. In addition to his work as a director and screenwriter, including for the award-winning short film The Water (2014), the documentaries The Voice of the Reed (2013) and Successful Women of Afghanistan (2012), Rohani was involved in the French film Kabuliwood by Louis Meunier as production manager.

 

 

 

Photo: Vision studio /Edris Salehi 

“No one else can match your support you have provided to an Afghan Artist who was under the pressure of civil war that takes daily life of hundreds of innocent people. I was also under the pressure of being followed, threaten, because of being an artist who love his job and wanted work hard to reflect his people’s sorrow and suffering through his work. I owe you all a huge thanks to made this possible for me to get out that suffering situation.”

Taeyong Jeong

In cooperation with Artist at Risk Connection, Aid A has covered the remaining costs for the court case of the Korean graffiti artist Taeyong Jeong.

In 2005, the former mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, had donated part of the Berlin Wall to the city of Seoul as a sign of friendship and solidarity and the desire for reunification between North and South Korea. Taeyong Jeong, who sees himself as a political artist, sprayed the concrete segments with fluorescent stripes and white patterns of the Korean flag on June 6, 2018. With his action Jeong wanted to celebrate the first summit meeting between North and South Korea in April 2018, for him an important step on the path of reconciliation between the two states. Jeong did not request permission for this work of art and was arrested and charged with destruction of public goods on August 27, 2018. The prosecution demanded a one-year prison sentence. Taeyong Jeong felt wrongly accused and misunderstood by the local press. He turned to various human rights organizations. With the help of Artist at Risk Connection, human rights lawyer Andra Matei has taken over the defence of the Korean artist. The trial took place on April 24, 2019. Jeong was found guilty and sentenced to a fine of 5,000 US dollars. The court did not impose a prison sentence, but asked the artist to remove the graffiti from the wall. He bowed to the Korean authorities and wrote to his lawyer: “Today I erased the graffiti. But in fact, it was the graffiti that erased me”

Photos: Artist at Risk Connection; Seoul Metropolitan Government

Rosa Yassin Hassan

Aid A supports the Syrian writer, novelist and women’s rights activist Rosa Yassin Hassan with a one-year literature scholarship.

Rosa Yassin Hassan was born in Damascus, Syria. She studied architecture and worked as an architect for seven years.  Since 2007 she has dedicated herself exclusively to writing. Her works include the novels Ebony (2004), which won the Hanna Mina Prize and  Guardians of the Air (2009), which won the Prix Litérature Arabe, the short story collection A Sky Tainted with Light (2002).

Rosa Yassin Hassan is active as a women’s rights activist in various feminist groups and founded the Syrian Women for Democracy Association in 2006. She has been a member of the German PEN Club since 2015 and a member of the Independent Association of Syrian Writers since 2012. Rosa Yassin Hassan has published numerous articles on cultural and political topics in Arab and international newspapers and magazines. After the Syrian Revolution and the civil war in her home country, she came to Germany with her son at the end of 2012. She has received various scholarships and currently lives in Hamburg, where she teaches Arabic novel reading at the University of Hamburg.

With the one-year literature scholarship Aid A supports the Syrian author in the creation of her latest book with the working title Wollknäuel.

“Writing can not feed the writer, we always have to work, but this distracts us from writing, there is simply not enough time. With the scholarship I can now completely immerse myself in the world of my characters and live with them. For me this means great liberty.”

Sherin Mustafa

Aid A supports the Syrian artist and graphic designer Sherin Mustafa and takes over the costs for a preparatory course (TDA The Drawing Academy) at the renowned Danish animation school The Animation Workshop in Viborg.

Sherin studied graphic design at Aleppo University and has worked as an illustrator, graphic designer and animator in Syria, Lebanon, Canada and Denmark for publishers, magazines and radio stations. Her work has been exhibited in Syria, Denmark and Sweden.

Silvanos Mudzvova

Aid A – Aid for Artists in Exile has invited the Zimbabwean stage author, performance artist and activist Silvanos Mudzvova with his latest play King of Mutapa to Hamburg.

In King of Mutapa Silvanos Mudzvova slips into the role of various rulers on stage. The satirical one-person play tells about African dictatorships and kings who ruled pre-colonial Africa with an iron fist until their death. Mudzvova, who wrote the play in 2017 as a scholarship holder at the University of Manchester, makes it clear above all how today‘s African rulers are still guided by the methods of the 18th century. With King of Mutapa, Silvanos Mudzvova continues his critical theatre work in exile. Previously, the activist had tirelessly and fearlessly protested in Zimbabwe against the repressive regime of former President Robert Mugabe with his plays and actions in public space and campaigned for more democracy and LGBT rights in his country. Mudzvova was repeatedly arrested, kidnapped and tortured for his artistic guerrilla actions, most recently in September 2016. Since then he has been paralyzed on the left. Mudzvova, who lives and works in Manchester, founded the online TV channel BhanditiTV in 2017 as an alternative media channel for Zimbabwe. In the same year he was awarded the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent and in 2018 he was nominated for the Freedom of Expression Award.

Aid A allows the World Premiere with his latest play King of Mutapa in Hamburg, pays the artistsfee, the theatre rent, travel expenses and accommodation for Silvanos Mudzvova and for the musician Björn Norrgård.

“When an artist goes into exile you have no clue about funding, performance venues and links. Aid A becomes the stepping stone for the start of your artistic journey in a new environment. Aid A is a true friend of exiled artists.”

Mazen Bou Assi

The Syrian violinist Mazen Bou Assi already worked in his home country as a professional musician and music teacher. He currently lives in Berlin and works as a volunteer musician for the Peace Train Berlin, a cultural workshop for refugee children and young people in Berlin and for the Berliner Begegnungschor, for which he co-organises performances. After passing the entrance examination, Mazen Bou Assi is currently studying music pedagogy at the Clara Hoffbauer Potsdam University of Applied Sciences.

Aid A supported Mazen Bou Assi in buying a new violin, which he needs for his work and studies.

Wei Jingsheng

Until the end of 2020, Aid A supported the Chinese writer and human rights activist Wei Jingsheng and his own foundation. With the help of the grant, he has been able to realize numerous projects, including the “Human Rights Without Borders” exhibitions in the U.S. Congress with the European Parliament, in order to remind people that the current situation in his country is still critical, especially concerning human rights and freedom of expression.

In a public show trial, Wei Jingsheng, who was 29 at the time, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In order to draw the western world’s attention to the writer’s situation, the founder of A.I.D.A., Ariane Mnouchkine, reconstructed the trial and created a theatre piece that was first performed in Paris in 1984. It was this protest with artistic means, as well as the activities of many western diplomats and politicians, that finally led to Wei Jingsheng’s release.