Soft Power Festival—Day 3

✦

10—11am

mokeyanju   |  Halle 2  ·   Radio—broadcast on Refuge Worldwide

✦

10am—noon

Kyurtash & Alix Casale   |   Hall 1 

✦

noon—1pm

From Grassroots to Festival: The Story of lilipad, a Multilingual Children's Book Festival

Sara Arsalane, moderated by María Inés Plaza Lazo   |   Hall 2  ·  conversation—broadcast on Refuge Worldwide's Breakfast Show

Sara Arsalane, founder and managing director of lilipad, discusses its origins and evolution from a volunteer-run grassroots initiative into a professional non-profit—her personal journey, the role of culture and informal education in shaping children's lives, and the ideas behind Untold Stories, lilipad's new multilingual children's literature festival.

✦

noon1pm

Alejandro Mosso (Live)   |   Hall 1 

✦

noon—4pm

SPY Story: Art Practices to Counter-Fiction Disinformation

Arts of the Working Class   |   Hall 1B  ·  Workshop

See Friday listing for full details.

✦

1—4pm

Spice as Soft Power

Akshita Garud (Two Odd)   |   Hall 2

See Friday listing for full details.

✦

1—3pm

DJ Chichi   |  Halle 2  ·   Radio—broadcast on Refuge Worldwide

✦

1.30—3pm

Joy Is Infrastructure: How Communities Build Cultural Power (Before Institutions Catch Up)

Cate Lartey (Black German Archive), Dr Obaro Ejimiwe (Ghostpoet), Jumoke Adeyanju, moderated by Kemi Fatoba   |   Hall 1  ·  Conversation

Founders, artists, writers and cultural practitioners who have built independent platforms for Black communities ask how care, publishing, cultural production and community-building function as forms of soft power. Cate Lartey (Black Archive Germany) documents private photographs and everyday histories of Black, African and Afro-diasporic life in Germany; Dr Obaro Ejimiwe (Ghostpoet) works across sound, performance and installation exploring memory, identity and Black joy; Jumoke Adeyanju moves between poetry, dance, sound and curation. Moderated by Kẹ́mi Fátọba, founder of Daddy magazine.

✦

3—5pm

Arts of the Working Class' Open Archive: Soft Launch & Edit-A-Thon

María Inés Plaza Lazo, Dalia Maini   |   Hall 1B  ·  Activation, in collaboration with Studio Manuel Raeder

For almost a decade, Arts of the Working Class (AWC) has assembled an archive of writing and images about culture, labour, society and everyday life. AWC is now moving its editorial records onto a new digital platform, and for two hours authors, volunteers, readers and festival visitors are invited to help edit, format, and put the archive back together—a soft launch offering a first look at the new platform, developed in dialogue with the visual identity created by Studio Manuel Raeder.

✦

3—4pm

Perera Elsewhere & Elvin   |   Hall 2  ·  Conversation—broadcast on Refuge Worldwide

✦

3—4pm

Duos Duet (Live)   |   Hall 1 

✦

4pm

The First Amphora

Susana AbdulMajid   |   Hall 2  ·  Performance

See Friday listing for full details.

✦

4—5pm

Salar Ansari (Live)   |   Hall 1 

✦

4—5pm

Leona  |  Halle 2  ·   Radio—broadcast on Refuge Worldwide

✦

4—5pm

Guided Tour   |  Sonnenraum  ·  Hall 1  ·  Hall 2  ·  Hall 1B

✦

5—6pm

Between Ecologies and Artificial Worlds: Reimagining Reality Through Art

Simon Speiser, Katja Pilipenko, moderated by María Inés Plaza Lazo   |   Hall 2  ·  Conversation—broadcast on Refuge Worldwide

Artists are increasingly working between ecological systems, digital environments and speculative realities. Simon Speiser and Katja Pilipenko discuss how artistic practices can examine unstable environments, technological imaginaries and changing relationships between humans and their surroundings—asking how artistic thinking can reveal new relationships between the natural, the constructed and the imagined.

✦

5—6pm

El Congo & Dumama (Live)   |   Hall 1 

✦

6—7pm

Who Builds the Future Cultural Infrastructures?

Anahita Sadighi, Tina Roeder, Lutz Henke, Heiko Pfreundt, moderated by María Inés Plaza Lazo   |   Hall 1  ·  Conversation

Festivals, independent platforms and cultural initiatives are increasingly essential infrastructures for artistic production and community building, yet often operate with limited resources. Anahita Sadighi (co-curator, Soft Power Festival, gallerist, musician, DJ), Tina Roeder (founder, Conceptual Biennial), Lutz Henke (visitBerlin) and Heiko Pfreundt (co-artistic director, Project Space Festival Berlin) discuss how new cultural infrastructures are built, maintained and sustained—examining alternative models of organising culture beyond traditional institutions, from festivals and artist-led platforms to hybrid spaces combining research, hospitality and public programming. What forms of cultural infrastructure are needed for the next generation of artists and audiences, and who has the power to design them?

✦

7pm / 9pm

Triangle Reshapes the O of My Mouth

Performance by Ushara Dilrukshan, in collaboration with Anousha Payne   |   Hall 1 & 2  ·  Performance—conversation broadcast on Refuge Worldwide

Ushara presents a one-woman opera in four acts, bringing together reinterpretations of works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Hildegard von Bingen with original compositions. Moving through states of solitude, fragmentation and renewal, the performance echoes the exhibition's exploration of interiority, transformation and the possibility of escape. At the centre of Anousha Payne's exhibition is the moth: a figure moving between inside and outside, private and public, confinement and freedom. Through sculpture, text, wax, batik and sound, the exhibition explores the home as both a psychological and political space—shaped by memory, labour, identity and control. The moth becomes a figure of transition and quiet resistance: a body that passes through boundaries, leaves traces behind and expands beyond itself. Ushara's sound work and live performance extend these ideas into a temporal and affective experience. Field recordings, organ, cello and voice move through the house as a changing presence, embodying the psychological states of the exhibition's protagonist. Ushara closes the festival with two performances in dialogue with Payne's installation in Hall 1, transforming the festival space into a shared environment of movement, sound and encounter.

✦

7pm

Table as Stage: Closing Communal Meal

Caique Tizzi, Community Cooking by Adas Deli (Julian Mancuso), with artworks by Adam Fearon   |   Hall 2  ·  Activation, in collaboration with the Berlin Gastro Solidarity Network

The programme concludes by returning to the table as a structure for living together. Community cooking by Adas Deli unfolds alongside artworks by Adam Fearon, served on hand-painted plates depicting tables across different eras, classes and design traditions. Adas Deli, run by chef Julian Mancuso, draws on his Sicilian, Lazio and Abruzzese family heritage for generous, produce-led food. Adam Fearon is an Irish, Berlin-based painter presenting hand-painted plates reflecting on the table as a space that shapes cultural structures. The Berlin Gastro Solidarity Network is a Berlin-based collective that uses food and hospitality as tools for solidarity and collective action.

✦

7.30—9pm

Maryisonacid   |   Hall 1

✦

8—10pm

Viiaan  |  Halle 2  ·   Radio—broadcast on Refuge Worldwide

✦

9.30—11pm

Module One & Soela   |   Hall 1

✦

9.30—10.30pm

Guided Tour   |  Sonnenraum  ·  Hall 1  ·  Hall 2  ·  Hall 1B

✦

11.30pm

Bruno Schmidt  |   Hall 1

✦