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The DEFA Film Library and Harvard Art Museums are currently presenting “Claiming Spaces: Art Interventions in East Germany,” a virtual film series showcasing 22 documentaries and animated films by or about unconventional East German artists.

The films will be streamed free to the UMass community via DEFA’s Vimeo platform through Nov. 24 in conjunction with the Harvard Art Museums’ exhibition “Made in Germany? Art and Identity in a Global Nation,” which runs until Jan. 5.

“This film series offers insight into the art world that existed parallel to official East German art of the late 1970s and 1980s,” says Hiltrud Schulz, DEFA production and outreach manager and curator of the film series. “East Germany’s artistic heritage continues to shape the heterogeneity of German cultural identities, as well as the memory discourse that defines the German art scene today. Through novel and experimental means, these films provide important political and cultural context for the periods before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.”

The films highlight East German creatives who were not endorsed by state-supported art initiatives. The artists featured in “Claiming Spaces,” operating under a repressive cultural environment, claimed their own spaces to exercise artistic freedom and self-expression. This included private galleries, homes and venues where they were able to exhibit their art and conduct multimedia performances. Artists also experimented with various formats, crossed genres, explored new media such as Super-8 film and partnered with organizations like the DEFA Studio for Animation Films, especially animations by Chilean artists in political exile that demonstrate cross-cultural experiments. Overall, the films represent diverse artistic interventions and provide examples of East German collaborative filmmaking that raise complex questions about identity and cultural heritage today.

Ultimately, many artists featured in the series felt restricted in East Germany and, after testing all available possibilities and imposed limits, many decided to cross the border to West Germany, where they became part of a “free” but competitive art market with its own challenges.

“Claiming Spaces” is supported by the Richard L. Menschel Endowment Funds for the Harvard Art Museums and the DEFA Film Library. More information about the series and the films can be found on the DEFA website.