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Surreal Continuum: Revisiting, Remapping, Reimagining Surrealism&nbsp;is a two-day festival programme that re-examines the movement on its centenary, reimagining and remapping it by examining interrelated movements and histories typically regarded as disconnected or rendered completely unseen, as well as by celebrating its overlooked artists and proposing other reference points.

Readings, Conversations, Performances, DJ Set, Artist Talks, Installations, Film Screenings 
11.&ndash;12.4.2025

surreal-continuum

Surreal Continuum: Revisiting, Remapping, Reimagining Surrealism

The one-week programme&nbsp;Always, Already There, conceived in collaboration with guest curator George E. Lewis, focuses on Afrodiasporic contemporary music composers. A series of concerts, lectures, and panel discussions draws attention to an enormous blind spot across Europe and aim to overcome it permanently.

With contributions by Leila Adu-Gilmore, Jessie Cox, Douglas R. Ewart, Hannah Kendall, Harald Kisiedu, George E. Lewis, Monthati Masebe, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, and others

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Always, Already There Booklet

For&nbsp;Bwa Kayiman, Asante develops and enacts the work with the contribution and collaboration of local womxn of colour, with whom they interlink a plurality of personal narratives and manifestos related to the legacies of slavery and colonialism. Together they form a chorus response to Ama Ata Aidoo&rsquo;s 1992 poem &lsquo;As Always a Painful Declaration of Independence&rsquo;. The voices come together in a live performance, centring the role of womxn of colour in world history as a collective act of learning and healing.

Performance by Barby Asante with&nbsp;Foluke Taylor, Camille Barton, Memory Biwa, Lerato Shadi, Nomaduma Rosa Masilela, Savanna Morgan, Adalet M&uuml;zeyyen, Thủy-Ti&ecirc;n Nguyễn, Nyambu Murage, Jena Samura, Sarah Zeryab, 12.8.2023

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Declaration of Independence

Inherited Testimonies&nbsp;is a live performance of culturally inherited, collective testimonies, delivered by traditional leaders and oral historians within a continuously transformed visual and auditory immersive environment&mdash;a large projection of evolving architectural and environmental scenes&mdash;conceived by Forensic Architecture/Forensis. This project, led by the Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA) and the Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), seeks to uncover traces of the genocide buried within the Namibian environment but present in the hearts of its affected communities, within the transformed physical environment, climate, vegetation, and the oral tradition of its peoples.&nbsp;

With contributions from Ashkan Cheheltan, Agata Nguyen Chuong, Omar Ferwati, Gaob Hanse, Angelina Kanduvarisa, Mutjinde Katjiua, Sima Luipert, Mark Mushiba, Tobechukwu Onwukeme, Maboss Ortmann, Eyal Weizman

inherited-testemonies

Inherited Testimonies

In the discussion series Theatre of Reconciliation, Max Czollek encounters people who are exploring questions of memory. How do societies remember? What does the much-lauded German Erinnerungskultur&mdash;culture of remembrance&mdash;have to do with the question of belonging? What does remembrance mean for the German, European, and international present?

versoehnungstheater-max-czollek-im-gespraech-mit-peggy-piesche

Max Czollek in Conversation with Peggy Piesche

After&nbsp;Theatre of Reconciliation&nbsp;and&nbsp;Overcoming the Present, the third season of Max Czollek&rsquo;s series of talks, entitled&nbsp;The Beginning is Near,&nbsp;looks to the future. Considering the calamities of recent years and those currently looming, this may seem counterintuitive, but that&rsquo;s the point: to take these crises as a starting point from which to move forward to different and better things. It requires a twofold insight: firstly, recognizing that current developments radically question previous political and economic conditions and social mores, and secondly&nbsp; acknowledging that things must therefore start anew in order to change for the better. The question of what has not worked and is currently not working is closely linked to the question of the future. It forms the context for Czollek&rsquo;s conversations with people who, in one way or another, are dealing with the question of how things can and must continue. These interlocutors&nbsp; develop ideas and provide stimuli for the motto of this third season:&nbsp;The Beginning is Near.

Part of the discussion series&nbsp;The Beginning is Near, 21.5.2025

max-czollek-im-gespraech-mit-manja-praekels

Max Czollek in Conversation with Manja Präkels

Who does Germany belong to? In eight podcast episodes, Max Czollek and his guests shed light on different perspectives and concepts of belonging in a plural society. The dialogue creates an archive of home and resistance, reminding us that these discussions are not new and that strategies have already been found in the past that can be taken further today.

In episode 3, Max Czollek talks to playwright and novelist Sasha Marianna Salzmann about the concept of disintegration: about its origins at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin and its role as an alternative approach to established notions of Jewish identity in Germany and beyond. Is disintegration an attempt to create a &lsquo;post-migrant Jewishness&rsquo;? Why did this work unfold in a theatre rather than in the German parliament, the Bundestag? What role do anniversaries such as the Victory in Europe Day on 8 May play? How has the meaning of disintegration shifted since Russia&#39;s invasion of Ukraine? And what can and should disintegration look like in 2025?

Who does Germany belong to? Podcast Episode 3, with Max Czollek and Sasha Marianna Salzmann

wem-gehoert-deutschland-podcast-episode-3

Disintegration: Against Jewish Tokenism

Between 1949 and 1990, thousands of people migrated to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from countries such as Algeria, Angola, Chile, Cuba, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Syria, and Vietnam. Their stories remain largely untold. The exhibition and research project Echoes of the Brother Countries is dedicated to the often overlooked political, economic, educational, and artistic links, as well as the exchange and migration movements between the GDR and other socialist-orientated states, the so-called brother countries.

What is the Price of Memory and What is the Cost of Amnesia? Or: Visions an Illusions of Anti-Imperialist Solidarities, An exhibition and research project at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 1.3&ndash;20.5.2024

echos-der-bruderlaender

Echoes of the Brother Countries

Between 1949 and 1990, thousands of people migrated to the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from countries such as Algeria, Angola, Chile, Cuba, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Syria, and Vietnam. Their stories remain largely untold. The exhibition and research project&nbsp;Echoes of the Brother Countries&nbsp;is dedicated to the often overlooked political, economic, educational, and artistic links, as well as the exchange and migration movements between the GDR and other socialist-orientated states, the so-called brother countries.

The Internationaler Literaturpreis 2025 Reader gathers extracts from the six works&nbsp;shortlisted for the award, which&nbsp;honours an outstanding work of contemporary international literature that has been translated into German for the first time.

internationaler-literaturpreis-reader-2025

The Internationaler Literaturpreis Reader 2025

What role does the political situation in Eastern Europe play for the entire European region and what impact does it have on art and literature? Yevgenia Belorusets and Olga Shparaga, two key players in the Ukrainian and Belarusian cultural scene, discuss these questions together with the author Katharina Warda, who is investigating the history of minorities and right-wing violence in the GDR.

Panel with Katharina Warda, Yevgenia Belorusets, and Olga Shparaga, moderated by Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Max Czollek, 8.2.2024

gegenwartsbewaeltigung-osteuropa-panel

Coping with the Present: Eastern Europe

In the discussion series&nbsp;Theatre of Reconciliation, Max Czollek encounters people who are exploring questions of memory. How do societies remember? What does the much-lauded German&nbsp;Erinnerungskultur&mdash;culture of remembrance&mdash;have to do with the question of belonging? What does remembrance mean for the German, European, and international present?

versoehnungstheater-max-czollek-im-gespraech-mit-naika-foroutan

Theatre of Reconciliation: Max Czollek in Conversation with Naika Foroutan

Videos

Upending the format of a sermon, this ritual engages with the complex encounters of patriarchal structures and colonial belief systems with struggles for reproductive justice. Artist and writer Luiza Prado proposes a reflection on alliances between human and more-than-human beings in processes of sexual liberation.

Performance by Luiza Prado as part of Bwa Kayiman, Rasanbleman Soupe Tout Esk&ograve;t Yo

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Celestial Interjections

In the title of this production, the Sesotho word lihloela translates directly to &lsquo;sentinels&rsquo;, especially in times of war. This series draws inspiration from Lesotho&rsquo;s history of resistance against colonial rule, including the Basotho Frontier Wars (1858&ndash;68) and the Basotho Gun War (1880&ndash;81). The work is a reminiscence of these times through music and song, a reimagination of the Lipina tsa Mokorotlo, meaning war songs or chants, sung by Basotho warriors before going to war. These songs were intended to instill bravery and heroism in men.Women, seeing their husbands and loved ones off to war, also contributed to the performance of these songs, mainly through ululations and praise-poetry.

Musical Intervention by Morena Leraba as part of Bwa Kayiman, Rasanbleman Soupe Tout Esk&ograve;t Yo

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Morena Leraba le Malingoana-Lihloela

Rumours On the Wind is a spoken piece written in response to Bwa Kayiman. A speculative testimony, unerasable in its mythic form and rooted in its power to recall, this piece centres the unknown voices that weren&rsquo;t present but still had a part to play in the coming Haitian revolution.

Spoken word performance acccompanied by live music as part of Bwa Kayiman, Rasanbleman Soupe Tout Esk&ograve;t Yo. Written and performed by Obaro Ejimiwe. In collaboration with Mar, Rio y Cordillera.

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Rumours On the Wind

On 13 August 2023, Venus, the planet of feminine energy, aligns with the sun, causing what only happens once a year: the Venus Star Point, signifying her rebirth and transformation from night star to morning star. Hosted within this symbolic reconfiguration of the sky, Danish-Kenyan Flamenco dancer and choreographer Phyllis Akinyi offer a rhythmic gathering of movement that honours the long history of female influences on revolution and justice, whilst specifically paying tribute to the Haitian Vodou priestess, mambo C&eacute;cile Fatiman, who is believed to have led the ceremonial rituals of Bwa Kayiman.

Performance by&nbsp;Phyllis Akinyi&nbsp;as part of Bwa Kayiman, Rasanbleman Soupe Tout Esk&ograve;t Yo

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I Come as a Woman, Dark and Open

Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) is a pluri-disciplinary institution in Berlin whose work centers around the practices of visual arts, performative arts, sonic/music, architecture, literature and oraliture, as well as scientific and cultural discursive formats.

hkw-mediathek

HKW Mediatheque

https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/veranstaltung/p_159411.php

English translation Lecture, Nov 30, 2019

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Monika Mattes: “School of excellence,” “learning factory” or “cozy corner”? West German Comprehensive Schools as Sites of Pedagogic Knowledge Production in the 1960s and ’70s (German)