June at HKW
2.6.2025
June at HKW
Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Bass Cultures
Concerts, DJs, Lectures
27 June–2 August
Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Bass Cultures explores sound system culture as a global phenomenon. From reggae’s deep pulsations to dubstep’s thunderous drops, the programme weaves together experiences, dialogues, and sonic practices that trace international connections. Musicians deeply rooted in bass cultures mix rhythms and melodies in live performances to create stories of resistance and solidarity.
The festival opens on Friday, 27 June, with a lecture by author, musician, and activist Linton Kwesi Johnson. As part of the first generation of Caribbean immigrants in Great Britain he always understood writing as a political act, and poetry and music as tools in a cultural struggle. Subsequently the stage belongs to Queen Omega & The Royal Souls, icon of the Roots Reggae, deeply rooted in her Rastafarian faith and often with a critical, feminist message. The Roots Daughters celebrate mainly female reggae artists in their sets with their own customized sound system.
On Saturday, 28 June, two lectures deal with the intersections of sonic performance, knowledge production, and masculinity and the question if KI is a friend or enemy of black music. Saturday night belongs to Les Mamas du Congo & Rrobin, André Marie Tala & The Tchamassi Band and Feminine Hi-Fi. Gladys Samba founded her group Les Mamans du Congo with two goals in mind: to support the emancipation of Congolese women and to preserve and spread Congolese cultural heritage. For fifty-five years, André Marie Tala influences generations of musicians and several musical styles with tchamassi, his distinctive form of Afro jazz. He has frequently exerted an influence on politics, namely in his home country of Cameroon. Feminine Hi-Fi have dedicated themselves to combining reggae/dub and Brazilian bass culture and to feature female acts and line-ups with their label and event series.
Heimatization: Empowerment and Resistance. Sinti and Roma since 1945
Conversation: Tue., 3 June, 19:00
heimaten publication series and podcast: out now
In the June edition of the series Heimatization, Hamze Bytyçi, chairman of RomaTrial and artistic director of the international Roma film festival Ake Dikhea?, Kelly Laubinger, managing director of the Sinti Union Schleswig-Holstein, and Isidora Randjelović, social pedagogue and co-initiator of the feminist Rom*nja archive RomaniPhen, talk to Max Czollek and Ibou Diop about Empowerment and Resistance. Sinti and Roma since 1945.
The podcast Who Does Germany Belong To? accompanies the series of talks in eight episodes. The first episode with Max Czollek and Naika Foroutan is now available in the HKW Mediathek.
The publication series 'haɪ̯maːtn̩ is published in collaboration with Merve Verlag. The first two volumes Björn Kuhligk: Wir waren schon da and Manja Präkels: Breathing Against the Wind are now available in the Archive Souq at HKW and in bookshops.
Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests
Exhibition
Until 16 June
The exhibition about travellers, their stories, and encounters, and the worlds they have opened up, runs until 16 June. Guided tours of the exhibition in German, Turkish, and English take place at weekends. Admission is free on Mondays.
A workshop with the artist from the exhibition Choy Ka Fai and the composer and instrument maker J. 'Mo'ong' Santoso Pribadi invites children and adults to get to know and try out making Indonesian gamelan music on Sunday, 15 June.
L is for the Way You Look at Me
Discursive programme, 2025-2027
Wed., 4 June, 14:00-19:00
L is for the Way You Look at Me unfolds a series of workshops, screenings, talks, reading groups, and convivial events that constitute HKW’s discursive programme between 2025 and 2027. The programme moves among different disciplines while exploring the re-imagination and re-enactment of love.
The 2025 edition unfolds through the microscopic lens, peering into the cohabitation and co-metabolization among organisms, which lays the foundation for the condition of being alive. Echoing the many interactions among the many organisms on many scales, the programme imagines various ways of being and becoming together.
Politics of Rhythm:
Ballroom, Bullerengue, Sabar
Workshops
With Politics of Rhythm, HKW stimulates practices that embody dance and music to further develop and maintain communitarian knowledge
The series Pump, Create, Elevate is aimed at the ballroom community and anyone interested in it. In the workshop From Body to Sex Siren on 20 June, Indica Gorgeous Gucci and Gifty Lartey will give an overview of the preparations required to run a ball, how to get the qualifying ‘10s’ and introduce helpful battle tactics.
The Afro-Colombian Bullerengue is an emancipatory and intergenerational practice of communality and knowledge transfer that recalls the history of resistance rooted in the Afro-diasporic community. The music and dance workshop Ruedas de Bullerengue. Intercultural Open Practices of Communitarian Joy and Resilience takes place on 21 June.
The drum and dance workshop series Sabar, Polyrhythm, and the Politics of Body Movement continues this year under the direction of Nago Guèye Koité & SAF SAP. Drumming and sabar are traditions that constitute a pillar in Senegalese oral history. The workshops take place on 24 and 25 June. More dates to follow.
The Beginning is Near: Max Czollek in Conversation with Luisa Neubauer
Wed., 25 June, 21:00
In his series The Beginning is Near, Max Czollek talks to people who, in one way or another, are dealing with the question of how things can and must continue. In June, he talks to climate protection activist Luisa Neubauer. She hosts the climate podcast 1.5 Grad. Her book, Was wäre, wenn wir mutig sind?, was published in January.
Internationaler Literaturpreis
Shortlist 2025
As diverse as the titles on this year’s shortlist are, they all explore a threatened self that also proves to be a resistant self. A self that holds fast, unwilling to surrender unseen and unheard to the cycle of violence in this world.
– Asal Dardan for the jury
The jury selected the six titles for the 2025 shortlist from 118 submissions from 61 publishers. The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, 17 July 2025 at HKW.
HKW hosts
Miss Read 2025
Art book fair und festival
Fri., 13–Sun., 15 June
In June, Miss Read returns to Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) with 300 exhibitors from fifty countries. This year’s focus on Ecological Publishing asks what sustainable publishing looks like in the age of the anthropocene—between low-impact printing, local production, and post-anthropocentric narrative forms.
The book presentation of Ecologies of Instituting will take place as part of the festival. The volume proposes instituting as a potentially critical method of curating, art-making and organizing.
HKW hosts
Walter Benjamin Lectures: Tommie Shelby
Lectures
Wed., 18–Fri., 20 June
Each year the Centre for Social Critique at Humboldt University invites a leading critical theorist to Berlin to give the public Walter Benjamin Lectures.
Philosopher and African American Studies scholar Tommie Shelby from Harvard University will hold the Benjamin Chair at the Centre for Social Critique in 2025. In his Benjamin Lectures Shelby will develop a Political Ethics of the Oppressed, based on the Black radical tradition’s major contribution to social and political philosophy in this regard.
For press photos, accreditations and interview requests, please contact presse@hkw.de
Calendar
Until 16 June
Wed.–Mo. 12:00–19:00
Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests
Exhibition, walks, conversations on art
€8/€6, free entry on mondays
Tue., 3 June
19:00
Heimatization
Empowerment and Resistance. Sinti and Roma since 1945
Conversation
EN/DE/DGS, €5
Wed., 4 June
From 14:00
L ist for the Way You Look at Me
Workshop, panel, film screenings
EN, free entry
Fri.,13–Sun., 15 June
Art book fair and festival
free entry
Sat., 14 June
18:00
Book presentation
EN, free entry
Sun., 15 June
15:00-18:00
Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests
Workshop
EN/DE, free entry, from age 8
Wed., 18–Fri., 20 June
Walter Benjamin Lectures: Tommie Shelby
Lectures
EN/DE, free entry
Fri., 20 June
18:00-22:00
Pump, Create, Elevate: From Body to Sex Siren. Ballroom 101 Labs
Workshop
DE/EN, free entry
Sat., 21 June
15:00-19:00
Ruedas de Bullerengue. Intercultural Open Practices of Communitarian Joy and Resilience
Music und dance workshop
EN/DE/ES, free entry
Sun., 22 June
14:00-18:00
Free of charge, please register
15:00
free entry
Tue., 24–Wed., 25 June
17:00-19:00
Sabar, Polyrhythm, and the Politics of Body Movement
Dance workshops
DE/FR/Wolof, free entry, with registration
Wed., 25 June
21:00
The Beginning is Near: Max Czollek in conversation with Luisa Neubauer
Gespräch
EN/DE/DGS, €5
Fri., 27 June
19:00
Linton Kwesi Johnson, Queen Omega & The Royal Souls, Roots Daughters
Lecture, concert, DJ-Set
€23/€19
Sat., 28 June
16:00
Reasoning#4: Sound System Epistemologies@HKW
Lecture
EN, free entry
17:00
From Museum Basements to Machine Learning: Is AI a Friend or Enemy of Black Music?
Keynote
EN, free entry
19:00
Les Mamans du Congo & Rrobin, André Marie Tala & The Tchamassi Band, Feminine Hi-Fi
Concert, DJ-Set
€23/€19
Visit Information
Opening Times
Wed.–Mon. 12:00–19:00
Free admission on Mondays
Extended opening hours during evening programmes
Childcare
HKW offers free childcare for many of its programmes. For further information visit hkw.de.
Current information about visiting and accessibility.
Weltwirtschaft Restaurant is open daily, from 12:00–00:00 on weekdays and 10:00–00:00 on weekends.
Contact
Jan Trautmann
Pressesprecher
Lead Communications Officer
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10 10557
Berlin
T: + 49 (0) 30 397 87 157