Sept. 1, 2026
On September 12th and 13th, the Transgressive Memory Festival will take over Berlin’s silent green Kulturquartier for two days of exhibitions, performances, films, music, workshops and critical conversations exploring how the past is remembered and mediated in the present.
Bringing together international artists, researchers and cultural practitioners, the Transgressive Memory Festival approaches remembrance as a living, contested process, asking: Who decides which histories are preserved, whose stories disappear and how might we remember otherwise?
Courtesy of Göksu Kunak
The festival’s exhibition presents works by artists like Ana María Millán, Charlott Eifler, Gabriel Massan, Göksu Kunak, Hussein Shikha, Felix Pacholleck, Maithu Bùi, Laura Cugusi, Clarissa Thieme, Nada Zanhour (Machine Yearning), Margarete Jahrmann, Martyna Marciniak, Qusay Awad, Raisan Hameed and Yara Richter, whose practices explore memory through games, sound, installation, ritual and digital technologies. A special showcase by transmediale extends these questions into contemporary media art. As part of the festival, Hamburg-based collective fashion initiative Hools of Fashion will run a stall with an opportunity to bring your own clothes and alter them on site using materials and techniques from the collective’s practice.
caner teker: ‘Kirkpinar’ // Photo by Spyros Rennt
The performance program rewires historical narratives through embodied and speculative practices. Highlights include caner teker’s reinterpretation of traditional Turkish oil wrestling (Yağlı Güreş) in ‘Kirkpinar’; TATAR KYZ:LAR’s ritual-inspired dinner performance ‘AŞ’; and Kostis Stafylakis’ surgical interventions on bear-suited performers in ‘The Bear’s Den,’ among others.
The festival’s film and discourse programs confront political violence and marginalized histories: Forensic Architecture presents filmic investigations into Staro Sajmište and Tantura, while panels such as ‘Narrating Absence,’ ‘Narrating Power’ and ‘Narrating Evidence’ bring artists and scholars together to question who has the authority to shape public memory.
TATAR KYZ:LAR: ‘AŞ’ // Photo by Ana Grancho
The program also features a keynote entitled ‘Every Monument Will Fall’ by archaeologist and author Dan Hicks, experimental films curated by VideoClub and an evening of music curated by CTM Festival, threading elements of its long-term project ‘Resynthesising the Traditional,’ which aims to explore how musicians can critically engage with traditions and heritage. The festival’s workshops also invite audiences to actively experiment with reenactment, archives, AI and embodied forms of remembering.
Festival Info
silent green Kulturquartier
‘Transgressive Memory Festival’
Festival: Sept. 12-13, 2026; 11am-10pm
transgressivememoryfestival.com
Gerichtstraße 35, 13347 Berlin, click here for map
