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.

The artist collective Para explores speculative futures that will already have passed, opening up a space that allows us to see the present through a new lens. Performances by the group investigate the ruins of financial speculation; question social inequality; hold the summit of Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze, ›hostage‹ in a museum to facilitate the return of the summit of Kilimanjaro, which German colonial geographer Hans Meyer absconded with in 1889. Para’s group exhibition ›Orangery of Care‹ is set to open at nGbK—neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst in the context of Berlin Art Week. In a conversation with Carolin Schmidt, Para’s Lina Brion and Amelie Neumann discuss the limits of regenerative activity, the colonial history of plants, and the transformative possibilities of care practices.

The exhibition ›Pier Paolo Pasolini: Porcili‹ at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) explores Pasolini’s ›corpo‹ using a wide array of original materials, including photography, film, newspapers, typescripts, and film costumes. It traces out his oeuvre and his world of ideas, highlighting the visionary life and work of the film director, poet, and thinker, reflecting the radical diversity and rejection of social norms and conventions that is typical of Pasolini.

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.