The former Catholic Church of St. Boniface in Gelsenkirchen is barely recognizable. From the exterior, the reinforced concrete building shows no religious elements, but displays a few contemporary paintings, and offers community gardens and a space for drinking tea. Inside, a sculpture made of two sticks and representing a lanky man on roller skates. The rest of the nave is occupied by photographs, paintings and performances linked to the theme of immigration, central in this former mining town. The Church has also been temporarily renamed “Ferdane Satir’s tea garden”, in reference to this Turkish mother killed in 1984 in a xenophobic fire.
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