This inaugural edition of the festival presents contributions that have emerged from the artistic research community of the Berliner Programm Künstlerische Forschung. Over several days and across various venues, the festival unfolds as a series of acts — installations, performances, readings, scores, sounds, screenings, dialogues, disruptions, and fugitive forms — shaped by the distinct research practices of each participating artist.

The contributions intertwine the methodologies, trajectories, and artistic forms that constitute the fellows’ research projects. Together, they form a constellation of practices that intersect, diverge, and coexist — a porous, many-voiced proposal for being alongside, where artistic research is not a fixed discipline or a method to be mastered, but a living inquiry into how we know, sense, imagine, and relate.

Thought takes form — not only in language, but in movement, image, sound, material, and relation. The festival claims space for research to emerge in its transformative capacity: as a communal act, driven by the desire to shift the inner mechanisms of knowing by artistic means.

The festival also marks the 5th anniversary of the Berlin Artistic Research Programme, which, despite its international recognition, is threatened with closure. Currently, no further funding is allocated by CDU/SPD in the 2026/27 budget draft.

Schedule

Anton Kats

What is Sonic Antifascism? Sudnozavod is a video work and music album by Anton Kats/ILYICH (Fellow 2024/25) that expands on his performance After Hope, building on its gestures, spoken words, and concert-like sonic elements to examine, grain by grain, the processes by which hope is built. At the exhibition activation, a conversation will take place between Anton Kats and Rike Frank, interwoven with a listening session of the album Sudnozavod, which „listens into crisis without ethical certainty, asking instead: what is the response-ability of an artist in a time of rupture, and what kinds of listening might sustain hope, support resistance, and imagine existing otherwise?“

Location: SAVVY Contemporary
Time: 2 November, 3–5 PM
Language: English with translation to German Sign Language
Free Entry

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Luise Schröder

Luise Schröder’s guided tour of her show Die Antwort lautet: NEIN (The Answer is: NO) at alpha nova & galerie futura centers on histories of women’s and lesbian resistance in the GDR. Drawing on feminist literature of the period, the work explores individual and collective memories, situating the reappraisal and reception of history and narratives in relation to contemporary queer-feminist knowledge production and examining them for their socio-political and utopian significance. The tour will take place in German and be live-translated into English.

Location: alpha nova & galerie futura
Time: 5 November, 5.30–6.30 PM
Language: German, with english live translation
Free Entry

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İz Öztat, Mykola Ridnyi

The screening at SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA consists of two moving image works, Here and now, and after? by İz Öztat and The District by Mykola Ridnyi. Both artists use performative strategies—one puppetry, the other a time-traveling walk—to explore the tensions between individual agency and systemic violence of repression and warfare. 

The screening is followed by a conversation with the artists. 

The District, Mykola Ridnyi, 2023 (20min)
In 2022, the neighborhood of Northern Saltivka in Kharkiv, Ukraine became a frontline of the Russian invasion, suffering severe destruction. A walk through this “ghost district” traces a tenuous coexistence of past and present, external and internal landscapes, facts and memories. A voiceover accompanies the walk, recalling the artist’s childhood and youth in places that no longer exist.

Here and now, and after?, İz Öztat, 2025 (26min)
Here and now, and after? is a puppet play for camera by İz Öztat that negotiates artistic agency, accountability, and the self’s relation to the Other. The video draws on Kasperle theater—a centuries-old German-language puppetry tradition—as a politically engaged pedagogical form, while referring to the Faustian pact as a literary motif. Imbued with cultural associations and projections, ideologies and stereotypes, a collection of puppets are brought to life to enact and reflect on the present, the figure of the artist and their contractual obligations to the state. The play is structured around three contracts: between Faust and the devil, the artist and the state, and the negotiation of erotic power-play. As agreements are reached by some puppets, others defy authority, demanding justice on their own terms.

Location: SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA
Time: 5 November, 8–9.30 PM
Language: English

Tickets

Dan Lie, Jessica Ekomane

Dan Lie and Jessica Ekomane are inviting the audience to attune to investigative practices in the intimate setting of the experimental Cashmere Radio station. Dan Lie leads a participatory mediation of thought and knowledge on the terminology of “Artistic Research,” engaging listeners through a combination of spoken reflection and knowledge construction. Following this, Jessica Ekomane presents a DJ set and listening session that blends sonic curation with archival excerpts and is inspired by her fellowship at the Berlin Artistic Research Programme. She will also offer a glimpse into her dialogue with philosophy of computation researcher Lisbeth de Mol, a conversation that will start during the festival.

Location: Cashmere Radio
Time: 6 November, 6–7.30 PM
Language: English
Limited Capacity. To join this event at Cashmere Radio, free registration is mandatory
Registration Link

The show will also be streamed live on cashmereradio.com

Anta Helena Recke, Henrike Naumann, Anna Zett, Pary El-Qalqili, Murat Adash,
Marta Popivoda,
Holly Herndon

The closing night, a mosaic of formats, includes performative approaches to artistic research as well as sound and moving image interventions. In their manifoldness they navigate sensory and epistemological layers of interrelatedness.
The contributions will be followed by music from Jessica Ekomane and Anton Kats.

Location: Sophiensaele
Time: 7 November, 7-10 PM (with breaks)
Language: English, German

Tickets

Fellows & Team

Bini Adamczak, Murat Adash, Jessica Ekomane, Pary El-Qalqili (Weltoffnenes Berlin), Daniel Falb, Holly Herndon, Anton Kats, Dan Lie, Henrike Naumann, İz Öztat, Marta Popivoda, Anta Helena Recke, Konstanze Schmitt, Luise Schröder

Executive Direction: Rike Frank
Coordination & Production: Mihaela Chiriac
Communication & PR: Philicia Kraatz
Graphic Design: Giacomo Moroso
gkfd: Kathrin Busch

In collaboration with:
Sophiensæle, Cashmere Radio, S A V V Y Contemporary, ŠINEMA TRANSTOPIA, alpha nova & galerie futura

Parts of the festival are supported by “Terms & Conditions”, a collaboration between the programme and the Harun Farocki Institut.

The programme is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion