Resonance Collective

What is Resonance Collective?

We are an interdisciplinary team of four queer individuals who combine social work, art therapy, cultural management, and diverse forms of creative expression—from dance and music to drag and circus to design and photography. Our shared experience in the participatory conception and implementation of empowerment, education, and community projects forms the basis of our commitment. We bring together different perspectives and create spaces where art, activism, and social work intersect. Our formats range from workshops, collective art processes, performances, and exhibitions to reflection and educational opportunities for professionals and communities. Our approach is anti-racist, queer-feminist, trauma-sensitive, and critical of power structures—it creates safety, vitality, and trust so that participants can express themselves, experiment, and become self-effective. Our target groups are primarily queer people, BIPoC, people with refugee and migration experiences, and professionals from psychosocial and cultural fields. We work predominantly in a self-organized manner, financed by project-related funding from public and private institutions as well as collaborations with non-profit organizations. Our goal is to create safe, creative spaces for collective healing and empowerment, where art can be experienced as a tool for self-reflection, connection, and social transformation.

Who are we?

Manima (QTN*w; they/them | no pronouns) - Social worker, multimedia artist

Manima is a non-binary social worker and multimedia artist from Berlin. At the Gay Counseling Center's specialist unit for LGBTI* refugees, Manima currently organizes empowerment and creative groups that promote social participation and self-efficacy. The photo projects for XENION - Psychosocial Support for Politically Persecuted People e.V. led to the creation of the artistic community Photograph United for young people with refugee experience, whose work has been presented in exhibitions and a magazine. Manima was also active in the Berlin Network for Particularly Vulnerable Refugees (BNS) and published on the topic of psychosocial care for people with refugee experience. As a drag performer and photographer, Manima explores queer narratives; in their own shows and the Creature Kin network, Manima creates performative formats in which art becomes a space for resistance and transformation.

Kaleido (QTPoC, they/them) - Designer, musician, performance artist

Kaleido is an eco-social designer, musician, and performance artist with a focus on participatory design and social sustainability. As the founder of Shamsi.eco, a locally produced solar oven, Kaleido combines ecological innovation with empowerment work in women's communities in Egypt and Tanzania. With experience in training methods from human-centered design and empathy tools, Kaleido develops interactive participatory exhibitions and interactive workshops. In Berlin, Kaleido designs creative educational programs for young people and queer refugees—using creative means such as music and percussion, juggling, makeup, mural painting, drag, and circus arts. As a musician and drag artist, Kaleido combines art and sustainability as a social practice. Their work creates spaces where collective learning, creativity, and self-empowerment converge.

Sointu (QB, any pronouns) - Dance artist, performer, and cultural producer

Sointu is an Afro-Finnish dance artist, performer, and cultural producer based in Berlin. Their work combines improvisation and influences from street dance, Afro-Cuban traditions, and contemporary dance. At the center of their work is the question of how movement can create a space for collective memories and the questioning of dominant Western perspectives. They co-organized a BIPoC drag project that explored gender through movement and music traditions and was part of the Black Resistance Practice research project, which concluded with a collective performance. Sointu currently leads a movement jam for BIPoC communities at Tanzfabrik Berlin. They have been supported by Durchstarten, UrbanApa, and the Ausland Residency Program and have performed at venues such as Dock 11, Sophiensaele, ImPulsTanz Festival Vienna, and HAU.

Thuli (QPoC, she/her) - Physician, artivist, art therapist

Thuli is a physician, art therapist, and artivist focusing on mental health and collective healing. She combines trauma-sensitive, psychodynamic approaches with creative forms of expression and leads group projects that promote self-care and empowerment. She has curated events for Trixiewitz e. V. and designed workshops for the Schwarzkopf Foundation and the Young Islam Conference. As a member of Black in Medicine, she is committed to fighting structural racism in healthcare and designs workshops and lectures, including for the Association of Democratic Doctors and Charité Berlin. The central themes of her work are collective healing processes and creative expression as a means of self-care and reflection. With “Create & Care,” she initiated a collective healing program and leads a creative workshop series for QueerBridges for queer people with refugee and migration experience.

Our Project: Bodies of Art

Queer people with refugee backgrounds find themselves in particularly vulnerable situations in the German reception context. Racism, queerphobia, legal barriers in the asylum process, and social isolation shape their everyday lives. Many live in shared accommodation, separated from the queer community and without access to cultural or psychosocial services. Intersectional discrimination leads to social exclusion, which can have a significant impact on mental well-being – especially for people who are already vulnerable. Discussions with residents of the queer shared accommodation facility on Kiefholzstraße and clients of Café Kuchus, run by Schwulenberatung Berlin, show us that there is a great need for regular, low-threshold group services where they can express themselves, network, and find peace. Behind this is the basic need to feel free, accepted, and safe.

With the Bodies of Art project, we want to send a signal for more recognition and justice for queer refugees in German society. The project creates a creative space for empowerment that focuses on the realities and needs of queer refugees. They are allowed to exist, try things out, express themselves, and connect with each other. They can give artistic expression to their experiences with stigmatization, racism, and violence while developing self-confidence, community, and scope for action.

Over a period of twelve months, fifteen participants meet twice a month for workshops that combine dance, music, performance, writing, photography, and painting. The RESONANCE COLLECTIVE provides inspiration and accompanies the processes, while the participants themselves determine which themes and media they use and how they shape creative processes. The workshops promote expressiveness and identity development.

The project concludes with a public multimedia exhibition in which the participants present their works—visual, acoustic, or performative. In this way, the voices, stories, and demands of queer people with refugee experience are made visible and brought into society.

Bodies of Art understands social participation as self-effective co-creation. Art becomes a means of collective healing, visibility, and social transformation—and the protected space becomes a place of self-determination, connection, and empowerment with the goal of a solidarity-based, diverse society.