JOURNAL

Celebrated for her puppets, Gisèle Vienne occupies a unique position between the stage and the visual arts. During Berlin Art Week, her work is on view in three different institutions at once.

Becoming Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, the Black Pope… photographer Samuel Fosso is known for assuming roles that reimagine and challenge historical narratives. His self-portraits shine a spotlight on iconic figures of Black resistance, offering a counter-narrative to the racist perspectives of Western colonisers. He also embodies complex characters to explore the enduring legacy of imperial ambitions on the African continent. Fosso’s first solo exhibition in Berlin, ›Samuel Fosso. Black Pope. Werke 1975—2017‹, opens at Kindl—Centre for Contemporary Art as part of Berlin Art Week.

Since 2016, Alya Sebti has been artistic director of ifa-Galerie Berlin, which she now co-runs with Inka Gressel. With the ongoing project ›Untie to Tie‹, she has established a multidisciplinary and far-reaching research programme to investigate the colonial structures of the everyday. We meet Sebti, who in 2020 also co-curated Manifesta 13 in Marseille and who is currently part of the curatorial team for the forthcoming São Paulo Biennial 2025, in a café in Berlin-Mitte to discuss the forthcoming show during Berlin Art Week, modes of collaboration, infrastructural thinking—and questions of beauty.

Berlin in the 1990s was a city in transition, searching for a new identity. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 transformed the city into a place of possibilities, where subcultures thrived and creative temporary uses redefined the urban landscape. Yet it also was a period of tension—a fraught balance between the spirit of renewal and the fear of loss.