Editorial and design work on a book documenting a political-artistic intervention by the Zentrum für Politische Schönheit — translating a controversial public action into critical, reflective form
Collaborative project · With: Alexander Schmale, Eike Arved Zinke, Lukas Zerrahn
Flüchtlinge fressen – Not und Spiele was an intervention by the Zentrum für Politische Schönheit in Berlin in 2016. In front of the Maxim Gorki Theater, the group installed an arena with four live tigers and announced that Syrian refugees would be offered to the animals if the German government did not change its policy on the visa-free entry of refugees. The action deliberately used radical imagery and public spectacle to confront the political and legal conditions of European migration policy. It quickly became the subject of intense public debate and was challenged by the Berlin district authorities, who sought to stop the action on the grounds that it constituted a political provocation in public space.
From Political Intervention to Critical Documentation
The project accompanied the action through interviews, photography and written documentation. The material captured the different perspectives surrounding the intervention — from the organisers and participants to the public response and the political controversy it provoked.
It involved the editorial and design work behind the accompanying book, translating a highly controversial intervention into a documented, reflective publication.
The work required navigating the tension between the action’s confrontational nature and the book’s role as critical documentation — structuring material, images and text so the publication could hold space for reflection rather than simply reproducing provocation.
The project sits at the intersection of political art, editorial design and public discourse, exploring how design can responsibly document and contextualise radical artistic interventions without flattening their complexity.
