Living Room

Living Room is a community center in Bern’s Marzili neighborhood. The space enables dialogue between artists, activists and community members to create a unique space where connections can be built and unheard stories can be told. Living Room uses community building, art, expression, healing and participation to address current issues around racism and other forms of exclusion. It’s a place for all of us but especially for those of us who may not have access to other spaces. It’s a place where we can feel at home, just like in our living room, a place where we can feel free.

Living Room has an atelier, library and workspace. We sustain multiple projects: Artists-in-Community, Diaspora University, Living Archiv, and Anticafé.

Friday, May 29 2026 10:00–15:00

ANTICAFE

The Living Room at Sulgenrain 28 is open to you as a workspace, social meeting point, library, and place to relax. There are drinks, food, Wi-Fi, the Living Library, and much more—come by and get to know our new space!

Saturday, May 30 2026 10:30–13:30

DIE FREIEN ATELIERS - ART WORKSHOP

For everyone aged 9 and up

Immerse yourself in the world of art – learn the fundamentals of various art forms and techniques with experienced artists in a relaxed and inspiring atmosphere.

Past events

Artist-in-Community

The Living Room offers an artist-in-community program: In it, local and international BIPOC artists or collectives enter into an honest conversation with the Living Room, with communities and the neighborhood.

Participatory research and other creative formats open up new aesthetic and critical perspectives on migration, anti-racism and decoloniality. Community Arts and Social Arts approaches are used to invent new relationships, communities and public spaces.

Diaspora University

The diaspora is a multi-voiced community with a lot of knowledge about Switzerland, about migration and racism, about politics, community and art. Asia Diaspora discussion and exchange meetings are currently held at irregular intervals (see the events calendar).

DIASPORA UNIVERSITY provides an open, cultural platform to express and share this knowledge as well as unheard stories, little known images and sounds. Film screenings, jukebox, lectures, political discussions, performances or simply discuss, play, remember, drink, be silent, laugh together.

Anticafé

Open on Fridays from 10 am to 3 pm.

Every Friday, the Living Room is open as a work space, social meeting place and to linger, without focusing on consumption.

People help themselves to food and drinkor can bring their own food to warm up. We offer drinks, food, outlets for charging devices, WLAN and workspace.

Donation is voluntary, suggested Fr. 5.-

The Living Archive is a place for everyone, a place of learning, unlearning and encounter. A public archive that collects intersectional, decolonial, and power-critical media in various languages, selected and written primarily by Black people and people of color. A place for discussion and self-reflection, in order to bring new perspectives to local resistance. The Living Archive consists of analog and digital media.

There are children's books, novels, poetry, non-fiction, (auto)biographies, magazines, films and a documentation archive of resistance (consisting of flyers, posters, etc.). For borrowing media, we need your name and phone number.

Image Living Room

Current collective members:
Mohamed Abdulkadir, Omar Blangiardi, Claske Dijkema, Angelina Dungga, Nataliia Hradanovych, Attoumani Mohamed, Stephan Schoenholtz

Former collective members:
Dragana Draca, Eva de Souza, Izabel Barros, Malana Rogers-Bursen, Mardoché Kabengele, Marianne Naeff, Nicolle Bussien, Rohit Jain, Said Adrus, Timo Righetti, Timothy Perry Bwengye, Youness Bitite