The Way Out Leads to Neukölln

Katharina Schlee
works as a cultural organization assistant at the Neukölln Culture Network (“Kulturnetzwerk Neukölln e.V.”)

Katharina Schlee had wanted to make art all her life, but her life kept getting in the way. She wound up out of work in Berlin, and a job in the cultural field seemed nothing more than a dream – until she found work via the Solidary Basic Income project.

Art and culture are the thread that runs through Katharina Schlee’s life, maybe even the only one that runs through her entire biography. Schlee’s path led her to several countries and different milieus. Behind her lies a sheltered childhood and wild youth in socialist Eastern Europe; life as an emigrant in a West German province; a degree in art; a pleasant life in Canada; and, finally, a series of unforeseeable blows in her adopted home town Berlin.

A Romanian-German, Schlee was born into a middle-class family in the West Romanian city of Arad in the Banat region in 1965. Her relatives are spread across the globe to this day. In Arad, she went to a bilingual, Romanian-German school, which she left after twelve years after passing her Abitur school-leaving examination. For as long as she can remember, she has considered herself a German, says Schlee.

She began taking classes in sculpture when she was 16, however, this interest in art was not something she was born with – Schlee benefited from the outstanding educational offer available in socialist Romania. “Romania had something akin to a community college that taught all kinds of arts, similar to the music schools run by the state in Germany,” Schlee tells us. “A friend of mine virtually goaded me into signing up for sculpture, and I stuck with it. It was right up my alley.”

Schlee took these art classes five times a week, which proved a truly valuable learning experience. She is always surprised when she meets people who think they don’t have an artistic bone in their body and are amazed by Schlee’s skills. “It’s like music: A lot of things you just have to learn.”

Schlee has fond memories of her life as a young woman behind the iron curtain. “I had a great time in Romania. We went to a lot of parties when we were young,” she says. That all stopped in 1985, when Schlee’s family emigrated to Germany – five years before the Ceausescu regime collapsed.

The family’s first stop in Germany was in Singen, close to the Swiss border near Lake Constance. Here, Schlee had to find her feet and undergo a one-year special training to re-take her Abitur examination. While her mother still lives in Singen to this day, the provincial atmosphere was not for Schlee. “I moved away pretty quickly and wanted to study art,” she says. “But then I got cold feet and didn’t dare try my luck at the large academy of fine arts in Munich.”

Instead, Schlee began an apprenticeship as a potter, which she was forced to quit a year later, as the business went bankrupt. She changed direction and began an apprenticeship as a bookseller in Frankfurt am Main. “I’ve always read a lot, ever since I was little. I enjoyed being a bookseller, I’d still like to be one today, but unfortunately, real book stores are becoming a thing of the past. Most books are ordered online, and book stores only stock the latest bestsellers next to coffee, postcards, and magnets. It’s frustrating.”

After completing her apprenticeship, Schlee worked as a bookseller for a while, but she kept coming back to her art. Together with a friend who had wanted to study art like Schlee, she signed up for a summer art course in Trier, after which the two friends submitted their portfolios to the academy of fine arts in Frankfurt. Even though this spontaneous attempt failed, it re-kindled their enthusiasm; the friends decided to put in a bit more preparation and try again in Munich.

While Schlee was preparing for the application, she traveled to Canada for three months. She wanted to learn English and signed up for more art classes – and met her husband, John, a Canadian. “For him, Munich might as well have been on the moon. He had never intended to move to Germany.” But he was soon to embark on his journey to the moon, as Schlee actually received a positive response from Munich. She was accepted to the sculpture and ceramics course and took up her long-awaited art studies in the Bavarian capital.

At the time, Schlee was 29, and was pregnant soon after. Her husband, a computer specialist by trade, couldn’t find work in Germany. “In the mid-1990s, a lot of German companies relocated to low-wage countries,” says Schlee. “At some point, I started to think about studying in Canada.”

No sooner thought than done. Her husband found a job in Toronto and they moved after the birth of their son. Schlee quit her studies in Munich, taking them up again at the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) in Toronto a year later. “I got there with my slim portfolio, told them I had studied in Munich for two years, and they let me enroll.” Even though the comparatively high tuition fees made a huge difference to studying in Germany, there were a lot of benefits. “In Munich, our professor was rarely around and the course of studies wasn’t really structured,” Schlee says. “In Toronto, on the other hand, we had to submit at least five certificates per semester.”

During her education at OCAD, Schlee’s second child was born. “After getting my degree, I was an artist and a mother.” Schlee organized her life as a freelance artist around childcare, and despite the double burden, the family led an almost swank life. “We lived in a Victorian house, had two cars and traveled to Germany every summer. It was a great time.”

Back then, Toronto was a lot like Neukölln, Schlee tells us. “It was even more alternative.” But gradually, the city began to change, turning into the pricey, glittering business metropolis it is today. This ultimately drove out the art scene. “There were less and less opportunities,” says Schlee, “and the kids were getting older and older.” The family therefore decided to move back to Germany, to Berlin, this time. “We wanted our children to get to know Europe, and I had always wanted to live in Berlin some day.”

Unfortunately, their arrival in Berlin turned into a crash-landing. Things kept going wrong, life became a series of failures and tragedies: The only job with a reasonable salary Schlee’s husband could find was in Frankfurt am Main, meaning for a long time, she was on her own with two pubescent children, who had their own troubles. Keeping up as a teenager in this new city of Berlin was no small feat. At the time, neither of them knew that her husband’s employer would give up his business just a few years later. But before that happened, Schlee’s husband slaved away until he burned out – after which he retired.

The children also fell ill. “My son was in hospital for seven months, and I took my daughter to the doctor more times in one year than I had in my entire life,” says Schlee. She sacrificed herself for her family, taking a range of different jobs and barely managing to get by. In a sector that was in rapid decline, Schlee’s plan of working as a bookseller was difficult to realize, despite her taking a temporary – and badly paid – position. Selling her art also proved difficult, and in the end, Schlee was out of work.

The job center, which pays benefits to and finds jobs for long-term unemployed persons, did what it frequently does and kept placing Schlee in different measures. “At some point, I started asking myself how many more courses I would have to take. I was mighty frustrated when I was asked to take yet another computer course – I’ve been using computers since the nineties!” And although Schlee didn’t know what Solidary Basic Income (“Solidarisches Grundeinkommen,” SGE) was, it would prove a lifesaver. “I’d really had enough, I was so frustrated, I came this close to leaving Berlin,” she remembers. “In that moment, the job center recommended an SGE position in the cultural field.” Finally something she was good at! Schlee was willing to give it a try. She submitted an application and received a call from Neukölln that same day. “The next day, I went to a job interview, and the rest is history.”

“Since getting this job, my mood has improved considerably. Even though I always kept on making my art, being unemployed really got me down.”

Katharina Schlee

Schlee got a job as a cultural organization assistant with the Neukölln Culture Network (“Kulturnetzwerk Neukölln e.V.”); the association is a network of various bodies and cultural centers that support the art scene in Neukölln. “They saw that I have the right background,” says Schlee. Who was better equipped to work as a cultural organization assistant than she? This SGE field was created to support Berlin’s cultural scene and grant more people access to cultural offers. To do so, cultural assistants provide support at events, assisting the responsible parties within organizations and management and helping visitors with reduced mobility or other impairments.

Schlee’s project team organized the “48 H Neukölln” festival – one of the association’s lighthouse projects. Across divisions and milieus, Berlin’s largest annual liberal arts festival presents the lively Neukölln scene, reflecting on current societal topics and debates. Schlee immediately took to the job and the environment; full of optimism, she started work in November 2020. But was soon thrown off track again.

Only a few months after starting the job, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “But thankfully, all that’s behind me now,” says Schlee, who returned to work in November 2021 after more than six months’ sick leave. Together with her colleagues, she is now preparing for the 2022 festival; the application phase for artists is underway. “I’ve always wanted a job like this,” Schlee says. “It’s perfect for me. I am extremely motivated, and I love having a job that connects to my biography.”

Despite the difficulties, Schlee does not regret having moved to Berlin. “A lot of the setbacks in Berlin were due to the path I had taken. Normally, you apply for a new job and then leave the old one. But it wasn’t that easy for me. I was an artist, over 45, had been abroad for 13 years, didn’t have any work experience in Germany, and to top it all, I was looking after my kids myself,” she says. “But lives and careers can change even without having gone to Canada. I have no regrets – Berlin was and is my thing.”

The income from her SGE position gives Katharina Schlee a perspective and ensures she can survive in the city. Even if her salary isn’t extravagant, it’s perfect for entering Berlin’s rugged labor market, Schlee says. “Solidary Basic Income helps you regain a foothold.”

Copy: Katrin Rohnstock / Rohnstock Biografien