The culture transfer planned over two years aims at strengthening the East-West integration by linking Berlin with urban art scenes such as Prague, Cluj (Romania), Istanbul and probably Vilnius (Lithuania). The curators and art critics Attila Tordai, Karel Cisar and Erden Kosova selected by the art magazines "Balkon" - now: "IDEA" - (Cluj), "Umelec" (Prague) and "Art-Ist" (Istanbul) act as mediators and stay in Berlin for several months during which time they will work on and present exhibition projects, actions, discussions and symposiums together with artists from their home countries.

The results of the projects executed in the Galerie K&S, Berlin, will afterwards be shown in the respective partner town and therefore brought back to where their makers came from. The magazines mentioned will be following the whole programme and report on it.As the first of four projects within the transfer programme "Back and Forth", from 11th April until 31st May, 2003 the Galerie K&S was showing the exhibition "Unoccupied Territories - inhabited zones and overlapping mind-made constructions in our everyday life" by the Romanian curator Attila Tordai.

As a second part of the exchange program curator Karel Cisar (Prague) has organized a group show involving a video screening, an photo exhibition and a public art event. The show of Prague and Berlin based artists will take place from November 21, 2003 to January 17, 2004 at the Galerie K&S. Seeking to show that the energy of both local scenes mainly comes from outside, the show includes an international roster of artists: Jesper Alvaer (Norway), Jan Mancuska (Czech Republic), Marketa Othova (Czech Republic), Robin Rhode (South Africa), Tomas Vanek (Czech Republic), Johan Zetterquist (Sweden). Karel Cisar will give the talk "Hand made - Czech video art now" on November 26 at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (http://www.nbk.org).

The third "Back and Forth" project is called "Along the Gates of the Urban", held from 23rd April until 20th May 2004 and managed by art director Erden Kosova (Istanbul) at Galerie K&S in Berlin. Experiences that are made on the outskirts of new centres of big cities, which have recently been created, form the thematic frame of the group exhibition. The works of Nevin Aladag (1972 Van), Heman Chong (1977 Malaysia), Esra Ersen (1970 Ankara), Tea Mäkipää (1973 Lahti), Erinç Seymen (1980 Istanbul), Seçil Yersel (1973 Istanbul) and the Berlin-based project Bankleer (Karin Kasböck 1969 Mühldorf and Christoph Leitner 1968 Alttötting) focus on the various facets of these threshold existences, such as the problematic relations between young and old and with urban environment, isolation, alienation, issues on immigration, unemployment and the harsh struggle for survival in big cities.The presentation of the works is based on the collaboration of all contributing artists.

"One must draw the line somewhere" is the fourth and last project in the international exchange programme "Back and Forth". It links Skopje and Berlin through D, a magazine which appears annually and which focuses on the drawing as an artistic practice and medium. Kurators of the exhibition are: the artist Yane Calovski, publisher of D as well as Miriam Bers, head of the project Back and Forth. Works of the following artists are exhibited: Aleksandar Stankovski, Florian Zeyfang, Goran Dachev, Ivanka Apostolova, Jorge Queiroz and Sandra Boeschenstein. They have developed the drawing to become the central form of their artistic dispute with subject areas such as science, the media, film and fine arts and fall back on narrative strategies or personal stories in order to produce a flowing transition between fact and fiction. An important aspect of the exhibition is making the social collapse and political marginalisation of the individual a subject for discussion.