About us
Who we are
Ephra is a non-profit organisation based in Berlin. Ephra conceives and realises innovative projects and individual offers for partner institutions and clients from the fields of culture and education. Ephra acts as an interface to connect children and art and is committed to breaking down barriers to participation in cultural offerings. Ephra opens up spaces for joint questioning at eye level. Ephra is committed to democracy and emotional education through art.
Our projects
In order to create places and spaces for child-friendly art education, Ephra cooperates with schools and various institutions, museums and exhibition venues, including the Bundesstiftung Bauakademie, the Jewish Museum Berlin, LAS (Light Art Space), Kulturhaus Schwartzsche Villa, Kunsthaus Dahlem and Gropius Bau. For the latter, Ephra conceived and implemented the education programme for the Yayoi Kusama retrospective in 2021, as well as workshops for families and school classes in the group exhibition YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal in 2022.
In 2023, in cooperation with Haus Kunst Mitte, Ephra presented the group exhibition
GEDANKEN SPIELEN VERSTECKEN. A Contemporary Art Exhibition for Kids and Adults with artistic positions from the Ephra on the road-programme. Ephra on the road offers children a direct exchange with Berlin-based artists in their studios.
Our mission
Education for democracy must begin in childhood! When children learn that their thoughts and feelings are valuable, this demonstrably strengthens their resilience and community skills. Children learn democracy by being taught how to constructively shape their living environment. Children are strengthened in their personal responsibility by experiencing diversity, co-determination and freedom of expression. Children hone their community skills by learning how to express themselves and listen to others.
Ephra connects children with artists and art because art encourages them to consider life's essential questions together. Children belong in art. Because art is not a privilege, but an important pillar of a democratic society.
Team
Rebecca Raue
is the CEO of Ephra. She studied art with Georg Baselitz and Rebecca Horn and lives and works in Berlin. At the age of 17, she was already dreaming of a house where children and art could come together. Her dream was to open new spaces for thinking by acknowledging individual worlds of feeling and exchanging ideas about them. Rebecca Raue knows the art world and the gallery and exhibition business, she knows the processes on the art market, but above all she knows many people who realise how important it is to let children really participate. With Ephra, she opens up the space to come together and positively impact their lives. To the website
Malu Blume
is an art mediator and artist. She studied art education and educational sciences as well as the Master Critical Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with a focus on art education. Malu has realised various projects at the intersections of performance, mediation, artistic research and community. She is a member of the queer-feminist studio collective and project space “Altes”. At Ephra, she leads the project Ephra unterwegs, develops mediation concepts and accompanies many groups on studio visits and in other workshop formats.
Alexa von Senger
studied cultural studies and business administration at the University of Potsdam. She is now continuing her master’s degree in Art Studies at TU Berlin. Through an internship in museum education, she was able to pass on her love of art and creativity. As part of “Achtet Alis MB”, the youth committee of the National Museums in Berlin, she does projects and workshops by young people for young people. Since 2022 she has been supporting Ephra primarily in the organization and implementation of Ephra unterwegs.
Amelie Bender
studied Art and Visual History and Educational Science at Humboldt University in Berlin and is now completing a Master's degree in Art Studies at TU Berlin. Training as a museum guide during her school years sparked her interest in art education. Since then, she has had the opportunity to work with children and young people in various projects. At Ephra, she has been supporting the public relations department and working on the website since 2022.
Agnes Ehlich
studied theatre studies, general and comparative literature and classical philology at the Free University of Berlin and the National and Kapodistrian University (EKPA) in Athens. She has been involved in various projects in the field of (object) theatre and especially inclusive dance in both countries. Her personal goal is to promote accessibility in the sphere of art and culture. Through her insights into various projects as an intern at Ephra, she is looking forward to getting to know art education for children and young people.
Amelie Mai Gottsmann
studied Art History and Musicology at the Georg-August University in Göttingen and continued her studies with a Master's degree in Art and Aisual Aistory at the Humboldt University in Berlin. She specialises in contemporary art, new media, music and sound art. She is particularly interested in making contemporary art accessible and involving children in current developments. She has been working in art education since 2023 and supports Ephra as an intern primarily in the preparation, follow-up and realisation of workshops.
Leyla Sünnenwold
is currently studying for a Master's degree in Artistic Research in Amsterdam. However, she actually comes from Berlin, where she studied communication at the Berlin University of the Arts and has worked in various organisations as a social media manager and communications manager since completing her bachelor's degree in 2019. She developed her enthusiasm for art education as part of "Achtet Alis MB", the youth committee of the National Museums in Berlin. Leyla first became part of the Ephra team as Social Media Officer in 2023 during the exhibition Thoughts Play Hide and Seek and now she is again responsible for everything that happens on our Instagram channel.
The Ephra Floor
Since March 2024, we have been occupying the Ephra Floor, an expansive space by BEOS AG in the Zeughof at Wrangelstraße 100 in Berlin-Kreuzberg. This is where during the project Ephra at home we are creating a creative laboratory, where children and artists can try out participation together, feel, play, discuss or dream, cook lunch, explore emotional worlds and landscapes and collect ideas for the future.
What people say about us
“Little people with big questions – and a blast discovering and thinking!”
– Sebastian Neitsch (Quadrature), artist
“The children are given space to develop here, they are valued and seen. What that can achieve is really impressive.”
– Heinke Castagne, social worker
“The projects are a unique opportunity to broaden the students’ horizons with creativity, knowledge and heart and support them in becoming self-determined and sparkling authors of their own lives.”
– Phil Elsen, politics teacher
“If I don’t walk out of here happy today, I don’t understand myself anymore.”
– Ephra unterwegs-child
“The children’s studio visit with me was enriching for everyone - a change of perspective for the children, but just as much for me. I gave the children a glimpse into my world and through your refreshing questions and thoughts, it was exciting to be allowed to see my works through your eyes.”
– Michelle Jezierski, artist, about the ‘Ephra unterwegs’ studio visit.
“I’m so full of ideas, I could explode.”
– Ephra unterwegs-child
“I love the unbiased, direct look of children – how they perceive art and discover things – that many adults have long since stopped seeing because they’re too cerebral.”
– Wie-yi T. Lauw, artist (Photo: Anna Bauer)
“I went wild in my imagination.”
– Ephra unterwegs-child
"Talking to children about my art is a real broadening of horizons for me. They ask unusual questions and make funny mental leaps."
– Stella Meris, artist (Photo: Andi Meyer)
“At the end, there was a small gift for each one: a lump of oil paint..
As you could see, the enthusiasm for this little lump was so haptically stimulating, and the opportunity to put materiality very directly into children’s hands is always very existential and fascinating.”
– Zuzanna Skiba, artist, about the ‘Ephra unterwegs’ studio visit (Photo: Maria Schöning)
“I think it’s nice that there are no rules in art.”
– Ephra unterwegs-child
“Christina Huber’s artistic works consisting of paintings, digital videos and performative actions explore questions of identity, social patterns and value concepts. These are explored on the basis of her own empirical experiences, as well as dance and body-oriented therapies, and then transferred into multi-layered, color-intensive images using walnut oil.”
– Christina Huber, artist
(Photo: Meret Freisen)
“What a joy to have a studio packed with curious children eager to play! Thank you Ephra for making it possible!”
– Ana Prvački, artist
“Opening a studio, and thus gaining an insight into a creative workplace, always offers young people a glimpse into a possible future. Regardless of the direction their individual future may take, a glimpse into the work of artists provides space for inspiration, broadens perspectives and gives children opportunities to explore and expand their ideas about careers.”
– Ahu Dural, artist (Photo: Benjakon)
"I learned that you can also just paint freely from your imagination and that it doesn't have to be perfect."
– Ephra unterwegs-child
I couldn't communicate verbally with the Ukrainian children, but we didn't have to, because art became our common language. I showed the children my way of working and then they painted over photos themselves. The result was a free play of colours, endless motifs overlaid with emotions and energy. The children understood this even without words.
– Erik Schmidt, artist (Photo: Thorsten Wulff)
“Very sensitively, Ephra has allowed a trusting & interpersonal closeness to develop between the children & me in my studio. The integrative power of culture is already being tested here at the root of society. This is absolutely meaningful.”
– René Wirths, artist
“Every year Ephra’s tours were so lovingly prepared & conducted in a child- & art-friendly way that it was a great pleasure for everyone. At the end of one tour, many children wanted to go straight back to the next one.”
– Maike Cruse, director of Gallery Weekend Berlin
“I always wish that school would continue so that I could go back to Ephra.”
– Omar, student
"Working with children is pure confrontation, pure reaction, pure questioning, pure happiness, like pure love."
– Uli Aigner, artist (Photo: Lena Herzog)
“After all, the best art is by artists who can still marvel and explore like the kids at Ephra!”
– Lena von Goedeke, artist
“I used to think the world had nothing to do with me. Since I joined the project, I know that the world has a lot to do with me.”
– Ephra unterwegs-child
“We had an incredibly beautiful day shooting at Ephra. What children take with them here and how they can be and develop here really impressed me. That is invaluable.”
– Tobi Krell, moderator on „Checker Tobi” KiKa
“Everyone was able to really speak their mind, and people dared to.”
– Ephra unterwegs-child, about the ‘Ephra unterwegs’ studio visits
“After the studio visit, I kept thinking about children’s universes across cultures and how they are permeated by primarily sensorial environmental experience. I see this exchange as a needed laboratory of nurturing and caring for children’s and adult’s timeless play of creation.“
– Silvia Noronha, artist (Photo: Kummer-Vanotti-Stiftung)
“Who learned from whom today?”
– Jay Gard, artist, about the ‘Ephra unterwegs’ studio visit (Photo: Fritz Bornstück)
“I thought artists always had the same technique – make everything as realistic as possible – but through the project I saw that there are a lot of different ones.”
– Ephra unterwegs-child
“I had a great visit with the kids from Ephra. Their curiosity and interest in my studio and my work, and the life of an artist was a refreshing and reinvigorating outside glimpse into my own process that I seldom have access to.”
– Ethan Hayes-Chute, artist (Photo: Gustaf Waesterberg)
“The project is making waves among the children and young people, which can also be noticed in other areas of everyday school life, in addition to artistic engagement. They grow in their attentiveness and reflection, in their clarity of expression and appreciation of their own work as well as the work of others.”
– Annette Pfnorr, Elementary School Teacher
“Something has stuck with me and the children from that day. Life outside of school and one's own comfort zone is so complex and diverse, I wish I would have made such trips when I was in school-going age...Even though I was not only showered with curiosity and understanding that day, I think there was a mutual interest...An interest consisting of trying to understand how the other person thinks...You are annoyed by the "Face Wine TikTok-Beauty-Trend", I am annoyed by classism...I think we all said goodbye that day with many question marks in our eyes, loved it.”
– Malte Zenses, artist, about the Ephra on the road studio visit (Photo: Ephra
What does the name Ephra mean?
The name Ephra is a tribute to Marion Ephraimson, born in Berlin in September 1889 as the child of Jewish fabric merchants. She is the great-grandmother of Rebecca Raue. Whilst searching for a name for the projects that had been in the pipeline for a long time, Rebecca came across her long-dead relative in meditations. She was a mother and grandmother and had been interested in art all her life. Her surname Ephraimson is derived from Ephraim (Hebrew ֶא ְפ ַריִם efrájim) - which means "fruitful on both sides". The word "ephra" thus precisely describes the vision that Rebecca and Michaela had for the projects: Through art connections, both fields, that of childhood and that of art, are cultivated and made fruitful for the future.
Ephra is children, future, art.