What does exile feel like today, in the middle of Europe? What remains when language, identity, or a sense of safety becomes fragile? When home is no longer a place of comfort? And how is Berlin changing — this city that has long been a point of departure and a destination for exiles from all over the world? From 19.06 to 28.06.2025, the Berliner Festspiele’s Performing Exiles festival explores these questions through theater, performance, dance, and talks — spread across three venues: Haus der Berliner Festspiele, HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, and Ballhaus Ost. The festival focuses on diasporic artists and their perspectives on identity, displacement, resistance, and memory. Some works are autobiographical, others experimental, but all are rooted in the urgency of experience. Among the program highlights is a world premiere by Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled Iran and now presents Destination: Origin, a piece exploring the elusive idea of home. From Kyiv, theater maker Tamara Trunova brings a new work developed between war and everyday life.

Mario Banushi, born in Tirana and raised in Athens, presents the wordless piece Goodbye, Lindita, a production widely discussed on the international stage. In a collaborative work, Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué reflect on their experiences of exile and interweave them with texts by one of Germany’s well-known exiles, Bertolt Brecht. A standout format within the festival is 100° Diaspora, a mini-festival inside the festival. Three days, five stages, 45 projects, and no jury, no curation, no gatekeeping. First come, first perform. From readings to performances, installations to circus, low to high. Among them, Rodrigo Zorzanelli’s solo performance Multiple Memberships (26.06.) is one not to miss. In its second edition, Performing Exiles once again brings urgency to the stage — without sensationalism. What does performing exile feel like? Open, sometimes uncomfortable, often moving.

Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Christophe Berlet, Fabian Schellhorn & Theofilos Tsimas

Performing Exiles Festival 19.–28.06.2025

The festival takes place in the Haus der Berliner Festspiele at HAU and Ballhaus Ost. The entire program can be found here.

@berlinerfestspiele

As we know, the best festivals are the ones that last the whole summer and are remembered without a hangover. Interdisciplinary __matter Festival 2025 meets both requirements. Running through October, it will transform Berlin into a living laboratory of material culture at the intersection of science, art and design. Initiated by the Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the event series focuses on a core theme: materials. What may sound abstract at first turns out to be far-reaching and deeply relevant because, ultimately, it’s about our ecological, social, and creative future. Eleven exhibitions. A rich program. Twelve venues — from Art Laboratory Berlin to the Späth Arboretum, from the Kunstgewerbemuseum to Silent Green Kulturquartier. More than 70 researchers from around 40 disciplines will contribute their expertise to reimagine the relationship between nature and culture, biology and technology, symbolism and materiality. In the Re:future Lab, for example, Rasa Weber dives into the depths of the Spree with a question: What if the Ocean Were a City? Her project, Syntopolis, is an immersive reef installation that transforms space into an urban underwater habitat. Here, boundaries blur between city and ocean, human and more-than-human communities. What if the Spree were a reef?

What would our shared life look like if we changed our perspective? At the Späth Arboretum — that fantastical hidden gem in the south of Neukölln — you can find out. The Vegetal Companions series invites you to encounter plants and trees as independent agents. The collective of flora becomes a source of inspiration for new forms of knowledge: soil as archive, philosophy as gardening, art as research. Here, humans are no longer seen as masters of nature but as participants in a polyphonic ecosystem. Fermenting Textiles at Art Laboratory Berlin also weaves anthropology, microbiology, and art to create a multi-sensory experience. Textiles are fermented in mud and plant material, a metaphor for collaboration between species, disciplines and traditions. The festival is a manifesto for the analog in a digital age. Materials are no longer seen as passive carriers, but as active, shaping forces — tools that define our world. We’re invited to rethink materiality as something that connects, transforms and determines the future. And what could be more satisfying than sharp ideas and fresh perspectives on the world, stretched across an entire summer?

Text: Hilka Dirks / Photos: Mathieu Kelhetter; Musée national d’historie Luxembourg; Aubin Woehrel

__matter Festival 2025

The entire program and all locations can be found here.

@mattersofactivity