The plain truth about rehab, if you dare to read it: It‘s really hard!
Before this year slowly draws to a close, I am thinking back on the cycles of sickness and healing of 2025; the many grievances I encountered in myself and in others; the painful training; and the gradual regaining of strength and the ability to walk, sit, and take the train, a plane, or a car.
I am thankful for those who accompanied me, listened to me, held my weak body, brought me flowers, cooked meals, and carried me through these intense months - and who still do. To another year of repairing and becoming ❤️🩹
ROOM PIECE III
Stay in a room for a month.
Do not speak.
Do not see.
Whisper in the end of the month.
1963 winter,
Yoko Ono
Today marks the opening of YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND. While I’m currently (involuntarily) performing Yoko Ono’s ROOM PIECE III and can’t celebrate with you tonight, please use your legs to run to @gropiusbau to see—and start activating—Yoko’s wonderful works together.
It was a pleasure to work alongside @patriziadander , Lisa Tietze and Simone Schmaus with the wonderful @yokoono on this expansive exhibition choreography, featuring more than 200 works. After traveling from London to Düsseldorf, spending many hours preparing and working with @rubyriama on the largest analogue 3D model I’ve ever encountered (see picture for proof!), meticulously checking as well as writing, and proofreading exhibitions texts and labels with Katharina Küster, I’m beyond happy that Yoko’s works have finally landed in her favorite city: Berlin. This one’s for you, dear Berliners.
Perhaps children can tell us so much about their own world that it can also be a model for us?
— Palle Nielsen
This project has taught me the seriousness behind play and how little space there is for children to shape and use it according to their own needs, wisdoms, feelings and impulses. In a world that is orientated towards the needs of normative, abled-bodied adults, it is more radical to bring a free play space for children into a museum context than one might initially think. With its new demands to institutional spaces, BAUBAU led me to reconsider parts of my curatorial practice as it is in its essence a continous and immediate form of critique, joy, freedom and play.
Chapeau to Kerstin Brätsch for trusting the children and Jenny’s (@jennyschlenzka ) vision for Gropius Bau. This wouldn’t have been possible without a big team effort and Suzanna Law (from @popupadventureplay ) who accompanied us with her sharp mind and yearlong knowledge about play from the beginning.
To another year of play at @gropiusbau
Photo Credit: Guannan Li (@_guanni ) and Suzanna Law
Before this turbulent year draws to a close, I am taking time to share some wonderful projects that kept me afloat 🌊
Thanks to @editmagazine@studiopandan for your trust and patience. It was my pleasure to introduce three artists I admire - Pallavi Paul (@pallavipaul87 ) Kate Blamire @kit__bla@sick_comrade and #MeinaSchellander - in the current issue focusing on margins.
„Zugleich ist die Peripherie aber auch ein Ort, an dem sich in nicht zentrums-gerichteten Zugängen zur Welt Gegenerzählungen und Kritik am »Hauptsächlichen» formulieren (lassen).“
What a journey! My warmest thoughts to everyone who made this cycle so special - you know who you are 🌱💙
Don’t miss your last chance to see @pallavipaul87 ‘s exhibition How Love Moves at @gropiusbau this weekend! ✨
I am happy to share more joyful projects of the last few months: a collaboration with Edit Literaturzeitschrift(@editmagazine ) - a magazine I’ve been vividly following and reading since many years (get your annuals subscription ✨!) - who asked me to curate the art section of their current issue. It was a pleasure to introduce the brilliant artists Josefina Anjou (@josefinamjao ), Michael Salu (@panopticonal ) and L.W. 🧡🧡🧡 and to see their works as part and in between many wonderful texts.
Allowing the breakthrough of the multiple in their practice, these artists make graspable how we are interwoven with, through and into each other. In their distinct practices, they find a polyphonic counterpart in the more-than-human: through the presence of a metaphysical perspective; in alternative digital cosmologies, as well as in rhizomatic structures as the inherent foundation of the body.
With texts by Elza Javakhishvili ellejava, Tlotlo Tsamaase @tlotlotsamaase translated by Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner @desde.s.mona , Rina Schmeller, Chen Chen @chenchenwrites translated by Devin Yu and Mari Molle, Constantin Heller @karlsson_vom_dach88 , Nhã Thuyên @nt160522 translated by Hieu Hoang @screamsolderthan_ Sophia Klink @sophia.klink , Sandra Burkhardt @sandrafrau2 and Thomas Winkler.
Thanks to @studiopandan for the kind invitation and the beautiful layout ✨
Image credits: @studiopandan
On this first of May, I am particularly thinking about concepts of labour and care and how much of it is rendered invisible within capitalist and patriarchal structures. In a poem I wrote for the beautiful publication „A Vase is a Vessel, even a Cocoon“ by artist Linda Weiß last year, I am reflecting on a body working over, working out, working on, working through full-time.
Graphic design: @profi_aesthetics
Sonic resonances, fluid moments and temporary capsules across waters. It is the fluidity of these works that have most profoundly stuck in my mind within and outside of this year's edition of Venice Biennial. I hope their echoes will multiply across the canals of this troubled island, country, and world at large.
1. Nicole L‘Hullier @nico_lh
2. Wael Shawky
3. Ersan Mondtag @ersanmondtag
4. Latai Taumoepeau @latai101
5. Isaac Chong Wai @isaacchongwai
6. Karimah Ashadu @karimahashadu
7. Precious Okoyomon @devilintraining_
8. Devonté Hynes @devhynes
9. Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme @basel.abb
10. Christian Nyampeta @christiannyampeta@labiennale@adrianopedrosa
After more than a year continuously working together with the incredible artist Pallavi Paul, I am excited, honoured, and extremely grateful that her solo exhibition “How Love Moves” opened to the public last week at @gropiusbau . It collates newest film productions alongside earlier works and site-specific installations that reflect on transient states of being, mourning and the persistence of memory. We hope that it creates space for the pull between remembering what is dearly missed, and letting go what needs to leave.
What I learned, again again, in the process of sharing time and room with Pallavi’s deeply resonating works is how love moves: through bodies, minds, geographies, timelines and through absences - Vem, da si tukaj, oče.
I hope to see many of you throughout the exhibition duration until 21 July and watch out for the announcements of our public programme - let’s hold this space together.
Big shout out to my wonderful colleagues and collaborators for their continuous openness, sharpness and affection ✨
