An independent media and mutual aid platform for artists, activists, healers, and practitioners working under war, siege, and repression. Built in Berlin. Rooted across geographies.
Who we are and what we build → RootsThree questions run through everything TURBA makes
How are you part of cultural resistance?
What practices do we need to unearth?
What do we need to seed — towards a post-systemic collapse infrastructure for culture?
Featured — SEED 004
Jamila Al-Yousef
Musician, coach, community builder — Berlin
“Cultural resistance isn’t performed. It’s practiced in the rooms we build ourselves.”
Where we come from.
What we are building.
Why it cannot wait.
TURBA (تُرْبَة — soil) is an independent media and mutual aid platform based in Berlin, built for artists, activists, healers, and practitioners working under war, siege, and repression. It centers Palestinian voices — in Gaza and in diaspora — and connects those whose cultural space has been systematically erased: through occupation, defunding, algorithmic suppression, and institutional cancellation.
Two threads run through the platform in conversation across distance: the daily work of holding cultural space under siege, and the collective question of what post-systemic infrastructure for culture might look like when built across geographies. Through a polyphony of exchanges, TURBA addresses how cultural resistance can be sustained in both the diaspora and the homeland, and how new bridges of solidarity can be built through the arts.
Where it comes from
In Berlin, artists and spaces were being silenced for standing with Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and beyond. Funding was pulled. Algorithms removed content. Institutions cancelled without explanation. The question became unavoidable: if the system will not hold space for those who need it most — what do we build instead?
TURBA is that building. Not a brand. Not an institution. A living system, rooted in care, redistribution, and defiance. Before we seed, we dig. Before we grow, we unearth.
The three questions
Everything TURBA produces is organized around three questions. They are not rhetorical. They are the curatorial instrument every practitioner works through, on their own terms, naming what official channels forbid.
How are you part of cultural resistance?
What practices do we need to unearth?
What do we need to seed — towards a post-systemic collapse infrastructure for culture?
How it works — the living system
TURBA has a heartbeat. It is not a static platform. It pulses.
Node events open the three questions to a wider ecosystem — artists, initiatives, spaces, NGOs, and institutions from the diaspora and connected to the homeland. Each event is both a public activation and a site of community building, where the online network becomes embodied and local solidarities are woven into the broader platform.
What each node event produces — raw testimony, mapped challenges, practitioner voices — is gathered in a harvesting room outside surveilling platforms. That material becomes the source from which Seeds, Threads, and the Roots podcast emerge.
The Map and the newsletter are updated monthly alongside each other. What the node events and community calls produce feeds the map, making visible what is moving through the network and what remains stuck.
The hope is that what each node event produces gets documented, published, and fed into the next city’s activation. Whether Amsterdam actually feeds Sicily, whether Sicily actually feeds London — that is what the coming activations will test.
What we do
We document
Long-form filmed portraits of practitioners working through the three questions on their own terms. Not on Instagram. On the soil.
We connect
Each Seed is threaded into dialogue with another practitioner’s context, creating a conversation across geographies and conditions.
We examine
The Roots podcast brings artists, activists, and journalists together to look at what infrastructure cultural resistance actually needs, from underneath.
We map
Three layers, always alive: what is urgent now, what is being built, what has been erased and must not be forgotten.
We gather
Node events where the online network becomes embodied, and local solidarities are woven into the broader platform.
We resource
Direct aid to communities under siege, support for spaces of resistance, knowledge exchange across the diaspora.
Where resources flow
Every Seed carried, every contribution on Patreon flows in three directions:
Direct aid
To communities under siege in Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan, and Congo.
Space support
To spaces of cultural resistance that need resources to survive.
Knowledge exchange
Sustaining artists, activists, and practitioners in the diaspora.
This is redistribution. Not charity. Not sponsorship. Resources moving back to where they are needed most.
How we decide what to publish
Every piece of content passes one filter before it goes out:
- Does it serve the person featured?
- Could it cause harm?
- Does it reflect our values?
- Is sign-off confirmed?
- Is the timing right?
If any answer is uncertain — it does not publish until resolved.
No centre. No algorithm deciding what is seen. No institution gatekeeping who connects with whom. Just roots, finding each other underground, feeding the soil.
Reclaiming space for truth and justice.
Three formats. One question. Cultural resistance documented and kept alive.
This is where the work surfaces. Everything TURBA produces flows from one source: the three questions that practitioners work through on their own terms, in conversation across geographies and conditions.
Seeds
A long-form filmed portrait. One practitioner, invited to work through the three questions as a curatorial instrument — naming what official channels forbid. Each Seed is then threaded into dialogue with another practitioner’s context, creating a conversation across distance. One practitioner at a time. Rooted in practice. Preserved in the archive.
Threads
Specific knowledge carried from one context into dialogue with another. Written exchanges across distance — between Gaza and Berlin, between diaspora and homeland. Because what is being learned under siege belongs in conversation with what is being built in exile.
Roots Podcast
Artists, activists, and journalists brought together to examine what infrastructure cultural resistance actually needs — from underneath. Multiple voices, one theme, spinning a web of resistance.
More is being seeded. Follow us on YouTube and Substack to stay close.
The Web of Solidarity and Cultural Resistance
A living geographic archive. Three layers, always alive.
What is urgent now
Spaces, practitioners, and communities that need support today. What the network sees, the network can respond to.
What is being built
Initiatives, platforms, and infrastructures growing across geographies — from Berlin to Beirut, from Amsterdam to Gaza. The emerging landscape of post-systemic cultural infrastructure.
What must not be forgotten
Spaces, voices, and practices that have been erased. What occupation, defunding, and cancellation have tried to remove from the record. The archive holds it.
How the map is fed
The map is updated monthly alongside the newsletter. It is fed by node events, community calls, and field testimonies gathered through encrypted channels. What each activation produces across cities — Amsterdam, Sicily, London, Berlin — is documented and fed back into the map. It is a harvesting room made visible.
This is not a static resource. It is a living infrastructure that the community can contribute to and consult.
All nodes in the network
Add to the web
Know a space, practitioner, or initiative that belongs here? A space under threat. A practice being built. A voice that must not be forgotten.
Add it to the web →Node Events
Node events are where the web becomes embodied. Artists, initiatives, spaces, NGOs, and institutions from the diaspora and connected to the homeland gather to map challenges and capacities together — on the walls, in the room, in the network.
Each event is both a public activation and a site of community building. What it produces feeds the map, the archive, and the next city’s activation.
Want to host a node event in your city?
Reach out → turba@culturalresistance.spaceThis is not a shop.
It is an act of redistribution.
Each Seed you carry is a direct act of solidarity.
Every few weeks we release a new Seed — designed and handmade by diaspora artists, using 100% recycled, sustainable, vegan materials. Each piece is one of a kind. Each carries a story of solidarity with communities under siege. Each one you carry is a direct act of redistribution.
100% of proceeds flow directly to causes chosen by the artist behind each Seed.
Cultural Resistance Scarf
100% Acrylic, 145×17cm. Pre-order. All proceeds donated to support community initiatives.
€37.50
Collective Liberation
Longsleeve Black. Hand-made screen print. 100% organic cotton, 180 GSM. Unisex regular fit.
€40.00
Palestine Music Space — Tomorrow is a planet
Long sleeve, hand-made screen print. 100% organic cotton, 180 GSM. Unisex regular fit. Sizes XS–XXXL.
€37.50
Liberation (BLACK)
Masked hoodie. Hand-made screen print. 100% organic cotton, 350 GSM. Double-layered hood, kangaroo pocket.
€60.00
Olive Tree — BLACK
Masked hoodie. Hand-made screen print. 100% organic cotton, 350 GSM. Double-layered hood, kangaroo pocket.
€60.00
Liberation (Burgundy)
Masked hoodie. Hand-made screen print. 100% organic cotton, 350 GSM. Unisex regular fit.
€60.00
CR LOGO BEIGE
T-shirt, beige. 100% organic cotton, single jersey, fabric washed. Unisex regular fit.
€37.50
CR LOGO — KAKI
T-shirt, kaki. 100% organic cotton, single jersey, fabric washed. Unisex regular fit.
€40.00
Each Seed carries a suggested contribution. If you are in Berlin and want to tend it in person — reach out directly.
turba@culturalresistance.space
Carry Seeds worth over €100 and we cover the shipping. Use FREESHIP100.
The soil grows stronger with every root that joins it.
TURBA is not built by institutions. It is built by people. There are many ways to root with us. Find what fits where you are.
Feed the soil monthly
TURBA runs on no grants and no sponsors. Monthly contributions on Patreon are what keep the archive alive, the Seeds growing, the map updated, and the network expanding. Everything flows back into the work and the communities it serves.
Become a root on Patreon →Stay close
Our newsletter goes out monthly alongside the map update — new Seeds, node event dispatches, what moved through the network, what needs attention now. No noise. No algorithm. Just the work, once a month.
Subscribe on Substack →Come underground — Mutual Aid
TURBA runs a vetted mutual aid network through Telegram — a closed, trusted space for artists, activists, and practitioners who need or can offer direct support: resources, housing, knowledge, care, emergency funds.
Built on trust. Access is vetted. This is not a public forum. After you reach out, a member of the TURBA team will connect with you to verify and welcome you.
Request access →Contribute to the harvesting room
TURBA is building a data infrastructure for documenting cultural resistance — from practitioner interviews, node events, field testimonies, and community calls. If you have testimony, knowledge, or experience that belongs in the archive, we want to hear from you.
This is held outside surveilling platforms. Your contribution is yours.
Reach out → turba@culturalresistance.spaceCarry a Seed
Tend one. Pass one on. Each Seed carried is a direct act of redistribution.
Explore the Seeds →Activate in your city
Want to bring a node event to your city? To open the three questions to your local ecosystem — artists, initiatives, spaces, institutions?
Each node event feeds the map, the archive, and the next city’s activation. The network grows through you.
Reach out → turba@culturalresistance.space