Fertile Void–Quantum Cosmologies between Science, Stories, and Speculation , 1. & 2.11.2025

Fertile Void. Quantum Cosmologies between Science, Stories, and Speculation
Lectures, Interactive Sessions, Conversations, Performances, DJ Set, Installation
Sat., 1 & Sun., 2 November

Celebrating the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, Fertile Void is a festival that grapples with questions posed by the quantum era. It aims to bridge the gaps in understanding that so often mark engagement with quantum phenomena. 

Quantum cosmology resonates with the interdisciplinary nature of other cosmological approaches, among them Ayurvedic teachings, Inca cosmology, Jewish mysticism, the divination systems of the Ifá in West Africa, or Blackfoot metaphysics in North America. Might contemporary quantum approaches be translations of these older forms of making sense of the world, reappearing in a different shape? 

Through artistic interventions, performances, discourse, installations, and workshops, the festival investigates how different ways of knowing and being can contribute to understanding the social realities that emerge from quantum theorems, just as they become actualized by technology.

And Now?! 
The Youth Housing Congress for Berlin
Discussions, Talks, Workshops
Fri., 7 November, 11:00–18:00

On 7 November, HKW listens to the ideas and demands of teens and young adults: And Now?! The Youth Housing Congress for Berlin returns for a second time.

Access to housing is a major challenge for many Berliners—secure housing is a scarce commodity. At And What About You? The Youth Housing Congress for Berlin in 2024, the message was loud and clear: housing issues cause stress and anxieties. This year, young people from all over Berlin will once again come together to highlight their perspectives, share experiences, make demands on politics and society, and take change into their own hands—loudly, creatively, and concretely.

Heimatization: … Together We Can Get It Done
A Robust Democracy and Civil Society
Conversation
Tue., 11 November, 19:00

The final event within the Heimatization series of 2025 unites various approaches and spheres of work. In two panel discussions, actors from civil society, culture, politics, and academia contemplate what a ‘thinking practice’ in the sense of a robust democracy might look like—and, in turn, what ‘practical thinking’ might look like. For one thing is evident: democracy is not a given. It must constantly be fought for and defended anew, through collective effort. This process often encounters setbacks. Some have paid for their commitment with their lives. But in their struggles and the voices that remain lies the strength from which, now and in the future, a pluralist society can draw.

With Henriette Gallus, Miriam Ibrahim, Lydia Lierke, Hannan Salamat, Awet Tesfaiesus, and others, moderated by Max Czollek and Ibou Coulibaly Diop

Global Fascisms
Exhibition, Book Launch, Panel, Teacher Training Course
Until 7 December

The exhibition Global Fascisms brings together works by around fifty international artists who respond to the rise of fascist ideologies through a variety of media, including painting, film, performance, discourse, publications, and digital formats. Complemented by historical artworks, it reveals unexpected historical continuities and offers insights into the ideological seduction and aesthetics of fascist ideologies, as well as their social and technological dynamics.

Highlights in November

Die Untoten
A performative intervention by the Schattenmuseum
Sun., 9 November, 16:00

Männlichkeitsbilder und autoritäre Verheißungen
Panel 
Sun., 16 November, 18:00

'Manfluencer' und wie man ihnen in der Bildungsarbeit begegnen kann
Two-day teacher training course 
Mon., 17 & Tue., 18 November

Book Launch Global Fascisms Reader
Wed., 19. November, 19:00

Amid a raging discussion about where authoritarianism ends and fascism begins, the Global Fascisms Reader critically examines the aesthetic, social, and political dynamics of fascism, questioning its appeal and ideological mechanisms, and looking at how current authoritarian conjunctures are being condoned, contested, and resisted across the globe. The longform essays, poetry, and conversations with experts collected here accompany the eponymous exhibition at HKW, engaging with a quintessentially modern and eerily contemporary political mo(ve)ment. 

With contributions by Stefan Baghiu, Thomas Biebricher, Cosmin Costinaș, Kwame Dawes, Jakob Grüner, June Jordan, Jeremy Knowles, Canberk Köktürk, Henrieke Kohpeiß, Daniel Loick, Clara E. Mattei, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, M. NourbeSe Philip, Vanessa Rocco, Arundhati Roy, Aaron Skabelund, Quinn Slobodian, Eric Otieno Sumba, Terese Svoboda, Julia Adeney Thomas, Vanessa E. Thompson, Alberto Toscano, Maxi Wallenhorst 

Somi: Re-Imagining Miriam Makeba
Concert
Tue., 18 November, 20:00

In no particular order, HKW is presenting artists who have changed worlds. One such act is singer and political activist Miriam Makeba, the namesake of HKW’s largest and most beautiful event hall: the Miriam Makeba Auditorium. This is where New York-based 

singer, composer, and actress Somi will be paying tribute to Makeba’s unparalleled output with Re-Imagining Miriam Makeba. 

Afrodiaspora—Composing While Black
Chamber Concert
Thur., 27 November, 20:00

At HKW, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) presents two chamber concerts in the 2025/26 season as part of Afrodiaspora—Composing While Black, featuring works by twelve Black composers from the UK, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Nigeria, Sweden, Uganda, and the US. Musical stories will be discovered that connect the past and the present, challenge traditions, and create new worlds of sound.

On 27 November, musicians from the DSO present works by six contemporary Black composers: Eleanor Alberga, Courtney Bryan, Ludovic Lamothe, Yaz Lancaster, Joshua Uzoigwe, and Thomas 'Blind Tom' Wiggins. The second chamber concert as well as a concert by cellist and singer Abel Selaocoe and his band Bantu Ensemble follow in 2026. 

Listening to the Past, Hearing the Present
Symposium with hany tea, Amuleto Manuela and others
Sat., 22 November, 15:30–22:00

Listening to the Past, Hearing the Present centres music as a form of remembrance and transgenerational dialogue. Two workshops brought together former contract workers from Cuba, Mozambique, and Vietnam, and their children. Through personal storytelling, shared memories, and musical traditions, participants explored how music can hold, transmit, and transform historical experiences, especially those marginalized in the context of the GDR.

This final public programme on 22 November 2025 invites the public into this process—through sonic offerings such as concerts, lecture performances, conversations, and shared listening, unpacking the complexity of memory and migration through sound.

Registration and more information: education@hkw.de

Politics of Rhythm
Bullerengue and Sabar Workshops

The Bullerengue and Sabar series take place in the frame of the ongoing programme Politics of Rhythm, which stimulates dance and music practices to cultivate and preserve communitarian knowledge.

Sabar, Polyrhythm, and the Politics of Body Movement 
Drum and Dance Workshops
Tue., 11 & Wed., 12 November, 19:00–21:00

Ruedas de Bullerengue: Practising Communitarian Joy and Resilience
Music and Dance Workshop
Sun., 30 November, 15:00–19:00

Love, Fear, Entanglement: A Speculative Exploration of Parasitism
Workshop and Reading Group with Regina Kanyu Wang
Wed., 26 November, 16:00–19:00

Love, Fear, Entanglement: A Speculative Exploration of Parasitism follows the previous events in the frame of L is for The Way You Look at Me, which moved from fermentation to deterioration, from the loosening of scientific rationalism to the reimagination of love. Led by speculative fiction writer Regina Kanyu Wang, a Xingyun Award recipient and Hugo Award finalist, this reading and writing workshop examines the coexistence and entwinement of speculation and reality, love and fear. Taking Daoist philosophy, scientific research in biology, and microbiology as guiding threads, Wang explores non-binary perspectives that serve as entry points into speculative futures where the distinctions between symbiosis and parasitism, biosphere and digital sphere are essentially blurred.

Departing from three short science fiction stories/essays, the workshop invites participants into an intersubjective journey of speculative writing in which different ways of coexistence are imagined, and new biological and affective entanglements are made.

The Beginning is Near
Max Czollek in Conversation with Sasha Marianna Salzmann
Wed., 19 November, 18:00

In his series of talks The Beginning is Near, Max Czollek talks to Sasha Marianna Salzmann. Salzmann is a playwright, novelist, essayist, and the co-founder of freitext magazine. From 2013 to 2019, Salzmann was an in-house playwright at the Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin and headed its Studio Я. Together with Max Czollek, Salzmann initiated the Dis-Integration Congress (2017) and the Radikale Jüdische Kulturtage (2018). Salzmann is the author of the novels Außer sich (2017) and Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein (2021), among others, and has been honoured with the Art Prize for Performing Arts of the Berlin Academy of Arts, the Prize of the Houses of Literature, the Hermann Hesse Literature Prize and the Kleist Prize. Salzmann lives and works in Berlin.

HKW Hosts | AFRIKAMERA Closing
Ancestral Visions of the Future  
Film Screening and Conversation
Sun., 16 November, 21:00

AFRIKAMERA celebrates the end of this year's festival at HKW with Ancestral Visions of the Future (France/Lesotho/Germany/Qatar/Saudi Arabia 2025) by Lesotho-born filmmaker and visual artist Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, who lives and works in Berlin. In his poetical masterpiece Mosese reflects on personal experiences of uprootedness and belonging through fragmented narratives and mythical images—a meditation on his childhood and adolescence in Lesotho until his exile. Inspired by oral histories, Ancestral Visions of the Future is a poetical autobiography, which unfolds in spirals and loops. Following the film screening, a pre-recorded conversation between the director Lemohang Jeremiah Moseseand Ibou Coulibaly Diop is shown.   

The AFRIKAMERA programme, featuring over 20 screenings, talks, and networking events, will take place from 11 to 16 November 2025 at seven venues throughout Berlin. For more information, visit www.afrikamera.de 

Programme for Children 
Workshop, Sun., 2 November, 13:00–15:00
Kid's Disco, Sun., 9 November, 15:00–17:00

Kosmos, Körper, Klang: ein multisensorisches Abenteuer für Kinder ab 8 Jahren

Workshop with Yosa Peit
Sun., 2 November, 13:00–15:00

As part of the interdisciplinary Fertile Void festival, which explores questions of quantum science, participants of this workshop use all their senses to explore the world around and within them. Together with musician Yosa Peit, the group experiments with echoes at HKW, travelling into the past as well as the future. In this way, participants  playfully discover how our ears and bodies connect us to the (invisible) quantum cosmos.The two-hour workshop is aimed at children aged 8 and above. FLINTA* young people are especially welcome.

Free entry, with registration via education@hkw.de

Kids’ Disco  
Sun., 9 November, 15:00–17:00

HKW invites kids of all ages and their families to the Kids’ Disco: through the magic of music and under the glitter of a disco ball, a lively environment is created in various locations at HKW for children to have fun, feel the rhythm, and make new friends in the process. Alternating DJs provide a constant stream of new sounds—the closest thing to a club for the little ones!

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.

Contact

Jan Trautmann
Leitung Kommunikation 
Head of Communications 
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin

T: + 49 (0) 30 397 87 157
presse@hkw.de