There’s no doubt East Asian culture is having its moment in the spotlight. A translation of a Taiwanese novel won this year’s International Booker Prize. K-pop stars have become household names. Over on TikTok, Gen Z-ers are going viral for “Chinamaxxing” — sipping warm water and doing the qigong exercises favored by tracksuit-wearing Asian grannies. Here in Berlin, a new noodle, ramen, or dumpling shop seems to be opening every week. As for fostering East Asian cultural experiences, Berlin now has a place for that too.
Opened in late 2025 in Wedding’s Soldiner Kiez, P60 creates space for East Asian perspectives. P60’S expansive storefront is shared with Encounters Bookspace and Impression Taiwan (the organizer behind Berlin’s Taiwan Film Festival). While books and film are at the heart of P60, the events program embraces contemporary East Asian culture in its many facets, with food pop-ups, exhibitions, craft workshops, and experimental concerts regularly filling the space.
Encounters Bookspace is run by Mary Lee and has a particular focus on indie literature, art, and culture from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the surrounding region. The collection includes novels, graphic works, zines, and art books, mostly in Chinese but also in other languages, representing the wide breadth of East Asian diasporic experiences and creative output.
In the coming days and weeks, Mary and her P60 co-founders have put together a varied series of events. Tomorrow (18.09.2026), Encounters’ evening concert series returns to welcome composer Shuoxin Tan and artist Jiyun Park, amongst others, showcasing experimental work that explores spectral resonance and sounds at the edge of human perception.
On Sunday (20.09.), the space will host a book launch for narrative and sound artist Yang Yu-Chiao, whose new work The Oral Generative World reframes and retells folktales from around the world. The event will culminate with a performance featuring Yang and Berlin-based sound artist Eric Wong, bringing ancient stories to life through voice and sound.
From next week (25.09.), the space will host screenings for the annual Taiwan Film Festival, with the German premiere of From Island to Island (由島至島). The documentary interweaves oral histories and archival material to tell the complex story of Taiwanese soldiers and civilians in Southeast Asia during WWII, when Taiwan was still under Japanese colonial rule. The film’s director, Lau Kek-huat, will hold a special masterclass at P60 on the delicate art of Filming Histories That Resist Being Remembered (27.09.). To take part, submit an application.
And I’m especially looking forward to 26.09., when folktale performer Yang Yu-Chiao returns to P60 to lead The House of Onomatopoeia, an immersive performance with five artists positioned around the space, intertwining cello, poetry, and electronic sound into a multilayered soundscape.
Text: Hilda Hoy / Photos: P60
Hilda Hoy is a Taiwanese Canadian writer, editor, and translator based in Berlin since 2008. She is the author of the newly published book Mother Tongue, a collection of lyric essays on the cultural and linguistic disorientation of growing up mixed-race in Taiwan. Mother Tongue is available for purchase at Encounters Bookspace.
P60, Prinzenallee 60, 13359 Berlin–Wedding; map
@hildahoy
@impression.taiwan
@encounters.hongkong
