Living Room. Somewhere In Between a Safe & Brave Space

Living Room is an independent community center in the quickly gentrifying neighborhood of Breitenrein in Bern. It is run by a loose collective of about ten persons, who come from different places around the world and who chose or were forced to make Bern their home. It is a place to create, a place that offers space for art, community and resistance, a place that can be appropriated and that can be made home. Various collectives meet here for regular meetings and public events, exhibitions and film evenings take place and artists use the space as a studio. There are many stories to tell about Living room, and others have done so, reflecting on a postcolonial living room (Jain, 2021) and how Living Room is a case of insurgent placemaking (Rogers-Bursen, 2021). This account focuses on living room as a space of encounter somewhere in between a safe and brave space, and looks at the role of art in making this encounter possible.
It starts with the argument that claiming space is also a spatial process and that closer scrutiny of the places where this is possible is worthwhile; it then develops the argument that Living Room is somewhere between a safe and a brave space and why this position matters; and it ends with in inquiry into the role art plays in making encounters between members of marginalized groups and members of the established group in society not only possible but also constructive even though confrontational.