BPA// Berlin program for artists

Today ten emerging artists join BPA//’s second year participants for a two-year working period. They were selected from over 500 applicants by a jury of BPA// participants, alums and mentors, as well as external experts.  Welcome Alex Bodea @alex_bodea_the_fact_finder Maithu Bùi @maithu_bui Samuel Georgy @yady_elneela A.Mac Giolla Bhríde @a_bridge_ Alejandra Morote Peralta @alemope Vanessa Opoku @vaopoku Minh Duc Pham @dju.zi Denzel Russell @__denzxl virgil b/g taylor @vbgt Xiao Zhiyu @xiaozhiyu_ Graphic: Arijit Bhattacharyya @arijitbh #bpa #bpaparticipants #berlinprogramforartists

Introducing Samuel Georgy @yady_elneela (b. 1994, Cairo, Egypt) is an artist —not a snob-living and working in Berlin. His practice spans video, sculpture, and editorial works, born from obsessive research through literature, history, and theory where niche meets trash, the canonical rubs shoulders with the mundane. With quirky humour, he investigates narratives, often revolving around demonised figures, while tackling self-sufficiency, the creative arrangement of energies, and the friction between artistic training and heritage vis-a-vis a given society’s culture. Working with equal parts craft and scavenged lettovers, Georgy’s work highlights labour and collection, the body versus its image -messy, deliberate, and unapologetically hybrid. Georgy holds a BA in Visual Arts from École de design et haute école d’art du Valais and studied at Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main (Hassan Khan class). Recent exhibitions include Mônopole, Lyon; Stadel Museum, Frankturt am Main; and Contemporary Image Collective, Cairo. He’s been awarded the Hansjoerg Wyss Scholarship (2017) and a DAAD scholarship (2022). Images: [1] Artist Portrait by Inès Heddar [2] Samuel Georgy, Soap Opera, 2025. Photo: Eric Bell [3] Samuel Georgy, An angel, 2020. Photo: Andrea Herrera Poblete. Courtesy Latifa Echakhch [4] Samuel Georgy, Holy Grail 2025. Photo by the artist

Introducing Göksu Kunak as BPA// guest mentor @goeksu_kunak (Ankara, 1985) is a Berlin-based artist, performance director, writer, and researcher working across performance, installation, text, and theory. Their practice examines the codes and conventions of spaces such as the white cube, black box, and public realm, unfolding through action-based performances, evening-length theater works, and site-responsive interventions. Kunak’s work draws on hybrid dramaturgies shaped by chrono-politics, non-Western methodologies, and the performative structures of everyday life. Influenced by Arabesk culture and science fiction, their texts and performances create speculative scenarios that criticize heteropatriarchal norms, Orientalism, and self-censorship. Simulacrum is a central concern in their investigation of bodily presence and representation. In recent installations and performances, Kunak explores the body within urban environments, treating it as an object alongside cars or construction sites. They use theatricality and language as sculptural material. With a background in literary experimentation and physical performance, Kunak crafts artistic responses to contemporary contradictions and suppressed histories. In 2025 Kunak was awarded the Akademie der Künste Kunstpreis (Berlin Prize for Art) in the category of Performing Arts. Their work has been presented internationally at institutions and platforms including Performa Biennial, Neue Nationalgalerie, Sophiensaele, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, MAPS Museum, Migros Museum, deSingel Arts Center, Kunsthalle Krems-Donau Festival, and Kaaitheater among others. Kunak was a BPA// participant 2023-2024. Image: Bygone Innocence, 2025, Donau Festival Kunsthalle Krems, photo by David Visnjic #göksukunak #bpa #bpaguestmenor #berlinprogramforartists

Introducing Saâdane Afif as BPA// mentor since 2016. @fountain_1917 is an artist based in Berlin. His work explores a variety of media without fitting into any particular artistic category or discipline. Recent solo and group exhibitions include Melancholic Beat (2026) Museum Folkwang, Essen ; Printemps 2026 (2026), Esther Schipper, Paris; Five Preludes (2025), Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Shifting the Silence (2025), Lenbachhaus, Munich. He will be part of But I World I See You (2026), Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg opening next June. His work is also featured at Documenta 12 (2007) and the 56th Venice Biennale. Two monographs have just been published: Saâdane Afif. Five Preludes (2025), Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin, Ed. and Affiches 2 (2026), Triangle Books, Brussels, Ed. He received the Prix Meurice for contemporary art (2015) and the Prix Marcel Duchamp (2009) and was grant recipient of Villa Aurora in 2020. He was the convener of the 4th edition of the Bergen Assembly triennial: Yasmine and the Seven Faces of the Heptahedron (2022). Together with Yasmine d’O. They found Side Magazine. Images: [1] Portrait, photo: Anri Sala [2] installation view, Hamburger Bahnhof 2026, photo: Andrea Rossetti [3] installation view, Hamburger Bahnhof 2026, photo: Andrea Rossetti

Introducing Maithu Bùi @maithu_bui (b. 1991) is an artist based in Berlin whose practice investigates dispositions and relational proximity through shared history of violence, science, and technology. Working across video, installation, mixed media, and writing, Bùi translates negotiations of life into spatial and situated encounters, with a particular interest in how resonance, speech, and agency emerge. Bùi holds a BA in Philosophy of Language and Logic from LMU Munich and an MFA in Fine Arts from UdK Berlin, and has been a 2024 Human Machine Fellow at Akademie der Künste, a 2025 Dreaming Beyond AI – Coalition Building in Times of AI fellow, and a 2025 recipient of the Stiftung Kunstfonds stipend. Their work has been presented at the 12th Berlin Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, and the Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius. Images: [1] Portrait. Photo: Markus Amon [2] Mathuật – MMRBX, 2022. Photo: Adam Šakový [3] Punched Card 0007, 2025. Photo: Julian Blum [4] Operation Remediation, 2025. Photo: Laila Kalett #bpa #berlinprogramforartists #maithubui

Introducing Alex Bodea @alex_bodea_the_fact_finder (b.1981, Cluj, Romania) is a visual artist and storyteller with a nomadic practice. Working with drawing, installation, painting, and writing, she observes and documents human experiences through a hands-on, field-based approach. Her works derive from direct encounters with people and places, transforming research expeditions into visual narratives that reflect on exile, identity, language, and queer culture. Selected exhibitions 2024 Galeria Lutnița, Chișinău, solo show 2025 SOLO, Bucharest, solo show 2026 Stations, Berlin, solo show Images: [1] Boy fighting back a man, 2023. Tempera, oil and beeswax on wood, 13 x 18.6 cm [2] Man and boy with iPhone,2023. Ink and tempera on paper, 16.5 x 24 cm [3] Cruising on Via Apia, 2025. Genuine indigo on paper, 52 × 72 cm [4] Portrait of Alex Bodea All credits: courtesy of the artist

Introducing Monica Bonvicini as BPA// guest mentor @studiomonicabonvicini emerged as a visual artist and started exhibiting internationally in the mid-1990s. Her multifaceted practice investigates the relationship between architecture, power structures, gender and space. Her research is translated into works that question the meaning of making art, the ambiguity of language, and the limits and possibilities connected to the ideal of freedom. Dry-humored, direct, and imbued with historical, political and social references, Bonvicini’s art never refrains from establishing a critical connection with the sites where it is exhibited, its materials, and the roles of spectator and creator. Since her first solo exhibition at the California Institute of the Arts in 1991, her approach has formally evolved over the years without betraying its analytical force and inclination to challenge the viewer’s perspective while taking hefty sideswipes at patriarchal, socio-cultural conventions. Images: [1] Portrait by Albrecht Fuchs [2] Installation view, Neue Nationalgalerie, 2022, photo: Jens Ziehe #bpa #berlinprogramforartists #bpaguestmentor

Introducing Flaka Haliti as BPA// guest mentor @flakahaliti_ interdisciplinary practice spans mixed media, sculpture, and spatial installation. Situated between abstraction and representation, and informed by artistic research, critical theory, and material experimentation, her work addresses belonging, subjectivity, human–animal relations, displacement, migration, transnationality, and territoriality, with a focus on the demilitarization of aesthetics. It examines the entanglement of aesthetic regimes and military logics in shaping contemporary socio-political imaginaries. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at major international biennials and institutions, including the Venice Biennale, Busan Biennale, Manifesta 14, the Moscow Biennale, steirischer herbst ’22, and the Baltic Triennial 14, as well as museums such as mumok, Lenbachhaus, Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum Ludwig, Lehmbruck Museum, and the National Gallery of Tirana, among others. She was shortlisted for the Preis der Nationalgalerie (2019) and is a recipient of the Ars Viva Prize (2015/16), the Ludwig Gies Prize (2019), the Henkel Art Award (2014), awards associated with the Fellbach Triennial and mumok, among others. Portrait credit: Eike Walkenhorst #bpa #bpaguestmentor #flakahaliti #berlinprogramforartists

Introducing Selma Selman as BPA// guest mentor @selman.selma (b. 1991) is a visual and performance artist from Bosnia and Herzegovina of Romani origin. Her multidisciplinary practice includes performance, video, painting, and installation, often rooted in autobiographical narratives that confront social injustice, gender-based violence, and systemic discrimination. Her works have been exhibited at documenta fifteen, the Venice Biennale, Autostrada Biennale, Manifesta 14, Gropius Bau, Stedelijk Museum, Schirn Kunsthalle, MoMA PS1, Istanbul Biennial. Selman is also the founder of the foundation Get the Heck to School, which supports Roma girls facing poverty and marginalization. Image: Selma Selman, Courtesy of the artist and Kunthuis SYB, Beetsterzwaag (NL), Photo credits: Vanesa Miteva

BPA// Exhibition 2025: A place never fully held 06.12.2025-11.01.2026 KW Institute for Contemporary Art @kwinstitutefcontemporaryart and Kunst Raum Mitte @kunstraummitte Participating artists: Umut Azad Akkel @azadonfire , Felisha Carénage @badgyal.felisha , Will Fredo @willwalidfredo , Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju @monilola , Tra My Nguyen @tra.my1 , Stanton Taylor @happinessdevoursthefuture , Rexy Tseng @rexytseng , Prateek Vijan @prateek_vijan , Hana Yoo @hanayoo.oo.og , Julija Zaharijevic @julijazahahaha Curator: Lara Scherrieble @some_lane Courtesy the Artists. Photos: David von Becker

Performance Felisha Carénage 'Yellow Bird (Choucoune)' Sun, 11.01.26 12:00-12:30 With 'Yellow Bird (Choucoune)', Felisha Carénage @badgyal.felisha engages with the figure of the Moko Jumbie—a Caribbean stilt-walking spirit guardian with roots in West African traditions. The one-off public performance unfolds on Auguststraße, between KW’s front house and Kunst Raum Mitte, the two institutions hosting the 2025/26 BPA// exhibition, in which the artist participates. Drawing on the song 'Yellow Bird' from the Caribbean musical repertoire, as an invocation, Carénage and Jhawhan Thomas create an embodied sonic interruption. Their personal and historical connections to each other, to Europe, and to their audience unsettle binaries tied to belonging and kinship. A presence both haunting and grounding, the Moko Jumbie glitches Creole memory into Berlin’s public space. Meeting point: Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin No pre-registration necessary _________________ #kwinstituteforcontemporaryart #kwberlin #kunstwerkeberlin #contemporaryartberlin Image: Felisha Carénage, Dreamer & Goner, 2024. Photo: Damian Charles / Dekoloniale 2024.

On three dates in December 2025 and January 2026, the artists participating in the BPA// Exhibition 2025 – 'A place never fully held' @berlinprogramforartists present their works in the exhibition. With Felisha Carénage @badgyal.felisha , Stanton Taylor @happinessdevoursthefuture and Prateek Vijan @prateek_vijan Tour BPA// Exhibition 2025 – 'A place never fully held' Show & Tell with the artists #3 Wed, 07.01.26, en 18:00–19:00 Registration via [email protected] More info available on our website link in bio. Don't miss out! _______________ #kwinstituteforcontemporaryart #kwberlin #kunstwerkeberlin #contemporaryartberlin Image: Stanton Taylor, And Babies?, 2025 BPA// Exhibition 2025 is a collaboration between KW Institute for Contemporary Art, BPA// Berlin program for artists and Kunst Raum Mitte. BPA// Berlin program for artists is funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion in partnership with KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Kunst Raum Mitte @kunstraummitte is a municipal gallery run by the Department of Art, Culture, and History of the Mitte District Office. BPA// Exhibition 2025 is supported by Octo Circle e.V. Additional support by the Stiftung Stark für Gegenwartskunst.