I was born and raised in Arnsberg, Germany, a small provincial town in the middle of former 'West'
Germany. A castle, a ruin, an old historic center, and surrounded by wonderful smel-
ling woods, full with fairies and gnomes. But still, for me not enough to satisfy my curiosity about
the world, big cities and other countries. Immediately after high school, I took of to experience
the midwest of the USA as an exchange student in Missouri. Even though this experience was very
disspointing, for it smashed my hopeful vision of the US and deeply shocked me, because of the
poverty, prejudism and lack of education, I remained in the US for another 2 years studying art in
Atlanta, Georgia and in Oakland, California. In these two years, I discovered true american freedom,
and especially California had a grand impression on me. In 1989 I returned to Germany, moved to
Berlin and continued my studies, majoring in painting at a small art college. With a Bachelor in fine
arts, no real aspirations to be a painter, I worked as an art director and concept designer for a small
gallery in Berlin, curating and overseeing an exhibition about avant-garde computer design and
science fiction. A project which is well preserved in my memory, not only becaues I discovered my
passion for work with managerial aspects, but also because I met my husband Markus, who was a
computer science student. From 93-96 I continued my studies in film and television set design in
Babelsberg, Potsdam. During this time I worked on several student film productions as a set designer.
After a 5 months stay in San Fransisco, I decided to immigrate to the US the following year. I had to
save money and had to change my academic/artistic resume, to one with real work experience. I was
hired by Fritsch & Friends media group as a project manager, to oversee a CD-ROM production for a
German Telecom product. I loved it. Here I truely discovered management related work, how much I
like it, and that I was really good at it. Having had this experience of working as a multimedia/web
designer and a project manager in 1995, I got a job (and a HB1 visa) at Illuminated Media, a small
media company in San Francisco. My daughter Charlie was born in December 97, and I found myself
defining motherhood. Shortly after I gave birth to Culturelounge, a non -profit arts organization. It was
my attempt to reunite eveything I have learned, and combine management with art. Culturelounge
published 10 web exhibitions and presented 2 wonderful events. My work was multifaceted, from non-
profit management, fundraising, grant writing, design, webdesign, networking with artists and curators.
Culturelounge started just as the economy went down in fall of 2001, and was not able to raise enough
funds for persuing with its goals. Nevertheless I am very grateful for this experience. I learned so much
and met so many wonderful people. Because my life is still filled with art, cultural interest, the urge create
fun and beautiful events, led me to be-space. be-space is a non-formal continuation of Culturelounge.
It's an entity with the purpose to bring the community together through a variety of events. Let's see
where it will take me.