The future is on the agenda! From 31.10.–02.11.2025, the Neue Nationalgalerie will become a stage for what has yet to be written. The Festival of Future Nows returns and invites you to shape tomorrow. Around a hundred international artists — from emerging voices to well-known names — will transform the interior and exterior spaces of the van der Rohe building through performances, soundscapes, choreographies, and interventions. Here, art is not merely displayed but shared: as a process, as an exchange, as an invitation to encounter the unpredictable. Originating from the Institute for Spatial Experiments, founded by Olafur Eliasson at the Berlin University of the Arts, the festival sees itself as a laboratory for new forms of coexistence and reflection on what lies ahead. The first edition took place in 2014 before the renovation of the Neue Nationalgalerie. And, in 2017, the festival moved to the Hamburger Bahnhof for its second iteration. With its third edition, the festival returns to its place of origin — the transparent pavilion that has itself become a symbol of exchange and movement. Here, we don’t explain what the future might look like; we try it out (and celebrate it at the afterparty on Friday at Studio 1111). Three days in the heart of Berlin, surrounded by glass, concrete, and ideas. Admission is free!
Text: Emma Zylla / Photos: David von Becker, Phillip Rahlenbeck / Credit: Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Institut für Raumexperimente, UdK Berlin, María del Pilar García Ayensa
Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Str. 50, 10785 Berlin–Tiergarten; map
Festival of Future Nows 2025 31.10–02.11.2025, Opening 31.10.2025 19h.
@neuenationalgalerie
