The HKW-Programme 2026
16.2.2026
‘If something or even nothing does not know its own kind, it is not being kind to itself.’
—Sun Ra, ‘My Music Is Words’ (1968)
In a struggle against despair as to the current state of the world, this quotation by Sun Ra invites us to reimagine the world we find ourselves in. The musician and composer Sun Ra reminds us that in order for us to be human, we need to know our kind and thereby recognize the humanity of the other. This becomes possible when we create space for and respect each other’s histories, philosophies, cultures, and sciences. Resonating with this notion, Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s (HKW) 2026 programme unfolds.
Tirailleurs: Trials and Tribulations
From Cannon Fodder to Avant-Garde–The Forgotten Soldiers Who Freed Europe
Exhibition and Research Project
21 March–21 June, Opening: Fri., 20 March
On 15 August 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron invited the world to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Allied landing in Provence that followed the Normandy invasion and was pivotal to liberating France and Europe from Nazi Germany. The ceremony highlighted an often-overlooked truth: the majority of the 250,000 troops in the so-called B Army were African soldiers who, according to Le Monde, ‘came from the colonies’. These young Tirailleurs played an active role in the liberation of France from Nazi Germany, while many others hailing from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania, and beyond were integral to the reshaping of Europe’s future and its institutions. Yet, their contributions have been systematically marginalized. While commemorative gestures, such as inviting African leaders to anniversary events, attempt to recognize their sacrifice, this history remains politically co-opted, under-researched, and unknown to many people, especially in Germany today.
In 2026, HKW seeks to address this gap with a wide-ranging programme that considers the role of the Tirailleurs in liberating France from Nazi Germany, how their efforts contributed to the liberation of Germany itself, and their impact on securing peace in Europe post-1945.
An expansive Tirailleurs: Trials and Tribulations opening weekend programme features artist talks, guided tours, panel discussions, concerts, including a performane by Cheikh Lô, and screenings, while cultural education tours, workshops, and conversational formats take place throughout the duration of the exhibition.
heimaten
2026
Heimat (home/homeland) is not a place, but a process that affects a society as a whole. With a critical view of the conditions for belonging and, above all, of the possibilities of participation, HKW conceived the heimaten programme, spanning several years in duration. Through the project, the shift from a singular Heimat to plural Heimaten is enacted. It performs heimaten as a praxis, as a verb. Following the focus on networking and discourse in 2025—with a conference on the topic of Deberlinization and the discussion series Heimatization, accompanied by publications and a podcast—several parallel series throughout 2026 show how productive the process of making a home for oneself in the fields of music, film, and literature can be.
Numerous events from April to December 2026 focus on authors who deal intensively with exile and belonging, film-makers of a young post-migrant generation who break with established rules and develop new narrative styles, and musicians from Berlin communities who are often overlooked in mainstream narratives, but have a significant influence on the sound of the city.
Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Global Echoes of Gnawa
Concerts, DJ Sets, Conversations, Lectures
June–August
In 2026, the annual Sonic Pluriverse Festival is dedicated to the rich musical culture of the Gnawa. The Sahelian roots of the Gnawa and their traditions form the starting point for exploring transcultural connections between North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe, and the Afro-diasporic world. Over five weekends curated by Alaa Zouiten, internationally acclaimed Gnawa artists engage in dialogue with practitioners of flamenco, tarantella, Santeria, Vodou, and Candomblé. These connections are expressions of a shared history that has taken different forms across different traditions. Special attention is given to the contemporary voices of women within Gnawa music culture who are shifting historical expectations of gender roles.
In addition to concerts, the festival encompasses parades, rituals, DJ sets, workshops, panels, and artistic residencies. The focus is on how musical and spiritual practices that emerged from experiences of migration, enslavement, and colonial oppression endure and find new forms of expression in the present.
Dates
Fri., 26 June, Salif Keita & Sat., 27 June, Justin Adams & Mauro Durante
Thur., 2 July, Baaba Maal & Sat., 4 July
Fri., 10 July, Asmaa Hamzaoui & Bnat Timbouktou & Sat., 11 July, Moonlight Benjamin, Bab L'Bluz
Fri., 17 July, Gnawa Diffusion & Sat., 18 July
Sat., 1 August as part of Bwa Kayiman
The full programme will be announced in the course of the spring.
Nduduzo Makhathini
Concert, Conversation
7 March
With a repertoire of piano playing and his chanting deeply rooted in Zulu traditions and philosophy, the composer, pianist, teacher, and healer Nduduzo Makhathini is one of the most exciting live artists in the international jazz scene today. Since 2006, he has played in various bands and quickly gained recognition as one of the leading voices of South African jazz. His album Ikhambi won Best Jazz Album at the South African Music Awards in 2018. The 2020 Blue Note release Modes of Communication: Letters from the Underworlds, hailed by the New York Times as one of the best jazz albums of the year, helped him achieve a worldwide breakthrough. At HKW, he performs in a trio with Lukmil Perez on drums and Dalisu Ndlazi on double bass. Join Maxi Broecking for a conversation with the artist immediately after the concert.
Discourse. Pop. Love
Discussion Series
March–December
Climate crisis, authoritarian tendencies, hostility, and militarism. In a world that is increasingly falling apart, Max Czollek explores the power of friendship in the fourth season of his discussion series. From journalism and theory to art and pop culture—everywhere, people are collaborating to bring their ideas, projects, and political goals to life. So how important is friendship when it comes to coping with the present without losing sight of the prospect of a better future?
Following the one-on-one conversations of the first three seasons (Theatre of Reconciliation, Overcoming the Present, and The Beginning is Near), for each date in 2026, Czollek invites two guests who are connected by their friendship, who collaborate, or who support each other’s work. Alongside analysis, they discuss how important this common ground is in their political and artistic work as well as the role of emotionality and pop culture. Hence, the series is called: Discourse. Pop. Love.
Dates
Wed., 11 March
With Melika Foroutan and Edin Hasanović
Wed., 29 April
With Benjamin Fischer and ruth__lol
Wed., 26 May
With Anna Dushime and Ari Goldzweig
Wed., 29 September
With Derviş Hızarcı and Barrie Kosky
Wed., 28 October
With Mely Kiyak and Necati Öziri
Wed., 2 December
With Jan Kuhlbrodt and Martina Hefter
Afrodiaspora–Composing While Black
Concerts
March & April
The initiative Afrodiaspora—Composing While Black, a collaboration between HKW and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO), continues in 2026 with its focus on works by Black composers and musicians, highlighting the diversity of classical music in terms of its themes, affiliations, and genealogies. The project sees itself as a platform through which compositions that have often been overlooked in the western orchestral landscape can be experienced and studied. Through concerts at the Berliner Philharmonie and chamber concerts at various venues in the city, among them HKW, the musical diversity and the history of African and Afro-diasporic orchestral music are being honoured. The programme is co-curated with HKW by composer and Columbia University professor George E. Lewis, DSO artistic planning director Marlene Brüggen, and DSO director Thomas Schmidt-Ott.
Dates
Sun., 22 March
Abel Selaocoe & Bantu Ensemble
Thur., 23 April
Works by Talib Rasul Hakim, Hannah Kendall, Daniel Kidane, Tebogo Monnakgotla, Alyssa L. Regent, Justinian Tamusuza
Schattenmuseum: schtzngrmm schtzngrmm– Was bleibt-t-tt?
Ongoing Cooperation
April & May
Based on the stories of the Tirailleurs, the Schattenmuseum—consisting of young people aged twelve and above, many with migration experience—opens up perspectives on current sociopolitical issues in an interactive performance. Through a collage of sound poems, quotes, advertising texts, and interviews, a space unfolds that invites visitors to participate and engage in conversation with each other. Topics addressed include compulsory military service, the ‘cityscape’ (Stadtbild) debate, and the expectations of different generations.
Dates
Sun., 19 April
Sun., 3 May
Politics of Rhythm
April–December
Under the continuing programme Politics of Rhythm, through which HKW stimulates practices that embody dance and music to further develop and maintain communitarian knowledge and corpoliteracy, a new set of Ballroom, Bullerengue, and Sabar workshops take place in 2026.
Bullerengue: Practising Communitarian Joy and Resilience
Music and Dance Workshop Series
Since the first Bullerengue: Practising Communitarian Joy and Resilience events in 2023, HKW has played a key role in planting the seeds of and establishing this Afro-Colombian practice in Berlin. The programme encompasses workshops, performances, screenings, internal and public spaces for rehearsal, and collaborations with practitioners from the territories where the practice is alive and thriving, as well as those based in Europe. Through this, Bullerengue has gained popularity as an accessible, intergenerational, and intercultural space of elation and cultural empowerment. To further strengthen the roots of this art form in the city, in April and October HKW welcomes the presence of renowned cantadora Darlina Sáenz and other maestros and maestras. They share their knowledge of this interconnected music, dance, and community-building practice in a workshop format (for which no prior experience is required), followed by a rueda, the circular open format in which Bullerengue unfolds.
Dates
Sun., 26 April
Sun., 4 October
Sabar, Polyrhythm, and the Politics of Body Movement
Drumming and Dance Workshop Series
Sabar, Polyrhythm, and the Politics of Body Movement continues in 2026 with workshops under the guidance of Nago Guèye Koitè and SAF SAP. In Wolof, the term ‘sabar’ refers not only to the drum as a single instrument, but also to the ensemble, the drumming style, the dance, and the festive gatherings and ceremonies that take place around it. The dancing dimension of the sabar typically begins with an individual’s dance movements before gradually unfolding into a shared moment shaped by the polyphonic energy of collective drumming. Participants of the workshops are invited to learn about and immerse themselves in this practice rooted in the traditions of Wolof, Lébou, and Sérère communities along the Senegalese coast.
Dates
Tue., 21 & Wed., 22 April
Tue., 5 & Wed., 6 May
Tue., 9 & Wed., 10 June
Tue., 20 & Wed., 21 October
Tue., 10 & Wed., 11 November
Tue., 8 & Wed., 9 December
Pump, Create, Elevate
Workshops, Guided Community Sessions
The series Pump, Create, Elevate, co-curated and co-produced by Legendary Mother Leo and Litchi Saint Laurent since 2024, provides dedicated moments for the Ballroom community to gather outside of the dynamics of the ball and training. The programme also offers a nurturing space for resonance, reflection, and dialogue around current discourses within the culture as well as on regional and (inter)national connections and distinctions between different Ballroom scenes. During two sessions taking place in April and October, various practitioners offer insights into their expertise and pass on their extensive knowledge of selected Ballroom categories and facets. The workshops welcome everyone wishing to expand their knowledge, skills, or network. Since Ballroom culture was created by trans women of African, Central and South American, and Caribbean descent—and continues to centre the lives and resilience of racialized and sexo-diverse people—their participation is especially encouraged.
Dates
Sat., 25 April
Sat., 24 October
AI (Ancestral Immediacies): Digital Twins and Data Doppelgängers
Lectures, Performances, Conversations, Installations
22 & 23 May
AI: Digital Twins and Data Doppelgängers looks at the rapid growth of virtual representations and synthetic replicas that digital infrastructures enable, considering the implications of this ‘doubling’ of life. A ‘digital twin’ is a digital mirror of a physical object, system, or process that is kept up-to-date with real-world data, which can in turn be used to simulate, monitor, or analyse the real-world counterpart. In contrast to static archives, these simulations offer real-time access and malleability—a promise that could all too easily slip into forms of control. And yet, digital twins are everywhere and nowhere: alongside far-reaching proposals to digitally replicate entire nations such Tuvalu and Singapore, the notion of twinning has already led to the massive expansion of AI personas acting in one’s stead, AI companions, and AI lovers. Within this ecosystem, AI sycophancy, a phenomenon that sees chatbots programmed to please their users, can mutate into chatbot psychosis; a parasocial relationship that rather than assuaging anxieties, replicates, and possibly potentiates them at scale.
Considering the stories we tell ourselves about the fleshy realities of life, and how they influence the social, what does it mean to live in the mirror world of the digital twin’s flattening? As AI fails to replicate the sensorial multiverse of human and non-human experience, we may need to pay more attention to embodied affects and reactions to external stimuli as part of the Spiel of doubling.
Shaped to the Measure of the People’s Songs
Rhythms of Sympoiesis by studio in:so
Temporary Pavilion
June–October
2023 marked the inception of a tradition at HKW: the construction of a yearly pavilion. Entitled Shaped to the Measure of the People’s Songs, endeavour embraces an impetus to critically consider space and to explore its various material and immaterial implications. Each year, a new pavilion takes on a creative translation and realization of the complex question of living together into spatial and material propositions. The series continues in 2026 with Rhythms of Sympoiesis, designed by the Berlin based architectural duo studio in:so (Li Lin and Liang Song).
L is for the Way You Look at Me II
Discursive Programme
2026
Departing from the first edition, which looked into the invisible entanglement of microbial interactions that compose the meshwork of life and the intonation of love, in 2026 the second edition of L is for the Way You Look at Me continues to explore the reimagination and re-enactment of love through the sensing, attunement, and expression of bodies.
From single-cell microbes to the multicellular body of larger living beings, radical mergings of living matter are bound in an interconnected process of metabolism and transformation. By living and sensing with the microbial, we can, perhaps, experience hunger through photosynthesis and sense our blood flow through vegetal rooting. Through lectures, panels, bodily practices, food, music, and reading sessions, L is for the Way You Look at Me II explores the body as an open landscape connecting and exchanging materialities, subjecthoods, and sensibilities. It calls for a collective sensing of the unnamable corporeal yearnings to feel, touch, transform, and synchronize with other living rhythms and vibrations—an impulse of life that we, sometimes, call love.
Internationaler Literaturpreis 2026
July
The International Prize for Literature (ILP) is awarded for the eighteenth time in 2026. It honours an outstanding work of contemporary international literature and its first translation into German. This dual focus makes it unique in the German award landscape. The International Prize for Literature concentrates on heterogeneous forms of contemporary narration and focuses on the relationships between texts and realities as well as the dialogue between different cultures and languages. By focusing on translations, it aims to overcome national canonizations and limited understandings of the literary and thus takes into account the current conditions of literary creation in a world shaped by diverse cultural interdependencies.
Since 2023, German first translations of international poetry can also be submitted. The International Literature Prize is endowed with 35,000 euros (20,000 euros for the author, 15,000 euros for the translator).
Tongue and Throat Memories
Cooking Sessions
August & November
Throughout the year, HKW invites chefs from different cultures into the kitchen of the Weltwirtschaft restaurant. Each chef creates a special menu for HKW guests, which is accompanied by an element of storytelling shared through various programmatic articulations such as films, performances, music, literature, leisure activities, and conversations. In this way, the intention is to revive the kitchen as a laboratory, a space for knowledge production, exchange, and transmission. In 2026, two sessions take place in August and November, inviting chefs from Brazil and Jamaica to unpack traditions of food making and rituals pertaining to Candomblé and its intrinsic connection to the natural world, as well as unpacking the making of social and political salons established by Black intellectuals from the African diaspora in Europe, America, and the Caribbean. In 2026, two sessions take place in August and November, inviting chefs from Brazil and Jamaica to unpack traditions of food making and rituals pertaining to Candomblé and its intrinsic connection to the natural world, as well as unpacking the making of social and political salons established by Black intellectuals from the African diaspora in Europe, America, and the Caribbean.
Bwa Kayiman: Crossing the Mangrove
On Forests as Sites of Eco-Political Knowledge
Performances, Dance, Rituals, Lectures, Conversations, Poetry, Music, Food, Films, Installations
1 & 2 August
Bwa Kayiman: Crossing the Mangrove marks the fourth chapter of HKW’s long-term curatorial investigation into the unfinished work and legacy of the Haitian Revolution. The festival again takes as its departure point the forest gathering of Bwa Kayiman, which took place on 14 August 1791 and initiated the revolution that would establish the first Black republic. The 2026 edition of the festival returns to the location of this seminal assembly to think on forests as sites of eco-political struggle, with a particular focus on the mangrove as a space of relation and knowledge. Today mangroves are among the most endangered ecosystems on earth, despite the significant role they play in regulating the global carbon cycle. These porous forests also hold significance and layered histories for many Afro-diasporic and Indigenous peoples, who globally face threats to their livelihoods due to the environmental exploitation systemically naturalized through colonial narratives.
In dialogue with thinkers and practitioners from the Caribbean, Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe, the festival addresses the ecological implications of colonialism, pressing environmental challenges, and potential forms of ecological stewardship. As in previous iterations, Bwa Kayiman: Crossing the Mangrove aims to strengthen the voices of communities still seeking emancipation. Thus, this year’s edition features a dedicated programme section consisting of performances, dance, rituals, lectures, conversations, poetry, music, food, films, and installations co-curated by members of the Ryūkyūan/Okinawan diaspora in Berlin.
Middle Ground: Nepal Literature Festival
Literatures from the Himalayas
Readings, Discussions, Workshops, Keynote Lectures, Performances, DJ Set, Open Mic Night
2 & 3 October
Inspired by Chinua Achebe’s understanding of the ‘middle ground’ as a space of doubt and imagination, the project Middle Ground annually invites literature festivals from around the world to Berlin to rethink how stories are made, shared, and carried forward.
In 2026, Middle Ground partners with the Nepal Literature Festival to approach literary practice through the lens of altitude. Here, altitude goes beyond physical positioning and can be understood as a metaphor of perspective. In the context of the Himalayan regions, this notion unfolds layered epistemologies that shape how communities there encounter and resist power. Nepal has long been contoured by the movement and passage of traders, pilgrims, migrants, refugees, and exiles, who over centuries have negotiated borders, weather, and power asymmetries. Ongoing political and religious tensions, alongside more recent anti-government protests, have further contributed to this complex landscape.
This edition of Middle Ground brings Himalayan routes into conversation with other landscapes of transit, asking how literature captures experiences of waiting, crossing, and interruption. Through workshops, readings, performances, conversations, keynotes, and an open mic night, writers and audiences are invited to engage with literary practice shaped by life in the Himalayan region.
A Felasophical Gathering
Concert and Discourse Programme
15 October
On 15 October every year, HKW celebrates the life and work of one of the most important musicians of the twentieth century, Fela Kuti. The initiative’s title, A Felasophical Gathering, alludes to the fact that Fela was not only a musician, but also an activist, political being, and philosopher. The annual gathering brings together musicians, scholars, activists, storytellers, and other co-voyagers to unpack the Fela curriculum.
Fertile Void
Lectures, Workshops, Performances
6–8 November
Fertile Void looks at the promises and narratives of quantum technologies through the lens of culturally situated, more-than-human, and counter-hegemonic epistemologies and the arts. Through artistic intervention, discourse, performances, and workshops, the festival investigates material science, and 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 new materials.
School of Quilombismo: Crip Epistemologies
13–15 November
Crip Epistemologies constitutes a vital platform for dialogue, education, and creativity centred around the experiences of disabled, d/Deaf, neurodiverse, and sick individuals, particularly within Germany’s cultural context. By emphasizing the often-overlooked voices of disabled artists and activists and by connecting and celebrating disability cultures, this initiative aims to re-write pervasive ableist narratives that marginalize disability.
Co-curated by Kate Brehme, the programme is disabled-led and, as the fourth part of HKW’s School of Quilombismo project, comprises workshops, lectures, and interventions that encourage in-depth engagement with themes such as producing, sharing, and archiving Crip knowledge. The word ‘Crip’ is derived from a derogatory term used to describe disabled people, reclaimed by many members of the community internationally to reposition disability as a positive marker of identity. Crip Epistemologies seeks to explore the politics of what Claire Cunningham has termed ‘being Crip’ and ‘Cripping’, and particularly its complex intersections with disability, race, gender, and sexuality in Germany and beyond.
The Nardal Salon, Re-enactments and Re-enchantments
Lectures, Conversations, Performative and Poetic Gestures, Film Screening, Food Offering, Comedy, Concert
28 & 29 November
During the 1920s and 30s, Paulette Nardal and her sister Jeanne ‘Jane’ transformed their home in Clamart into one of the most influential spaces for Black intellectuals during the interwar period. The Nardal Salon was an incubator for ideas, debates and cultural exchange, laying the foundations for the emergence of the Négritude movement. Through gatherings at their salon and the publication of the Revue du Monde Noir (1931–32), the Nardal sisters helped to establish Paris as an intellectual hub for the Black world, with the participation of writers, pedagogues, artists, and activists like Suzanne and Aimé Césaire, Léon Damasand, Suzanne Lacascade, René Maran, their sister Andrée Nardal, Léo Sajous, Léopold Senghor, and many others.
The Nardal Salon, Re-enactments and Re-enchantments revives the salon as a space of presence, collective thought, and political imagination. Drawing on the legacy of the Nardal sisters’ activities in interwar Paris, the project approaches the salon as a living practice. In a moment marked by growing backlash against pluralism and shrinking spaces for dissent, the salon becomes a necessary infrastructure for thinking together. By connecting the Parisian salon to other diasporic spaces of gathering such as shebeens, grins, and achombo houses, the project asks how critical, communal spaces can be sustained today as sites of resistance, solidarity, and future-making. The series of re-enactments and re-enchantments at HKW employs literature, poetry, dance, performance, music, and other artistic modes of expression and highlights contemporary forms of salon practices from Abidjan, Berlin, Dakar, Douala, Paris, and beyond.
Uncertain Intelligences
Artistic Research Programme
January 2026–September 2027
Uncertain Intelligences takes the deepfake as an entry point into the trajectory of AI expansion. The two-year research project examines how synthetic content both shapes and is shaped by social desires, emotional models, and technological imaginaries. The project asks how trust, participation, and concepts of truth might be renegotiated within a digitized public sphere—without slipping into authoritarian frameworks or retreating into technology-sceptic isolation.
Grounded in diverse research practices and methods of critical speculation and accompanied by a curatorial and scientific advisory board, artists manuel arturo abreu, Nora Al-Badri, and Josèfa Ntjam develop artistic projects that engage with the scaffolding of the ‘generated real’, technologically produced social truths, and their broader contexts. The project foregrounds non-dominant technological perspectives and emphasizes ethical approaches rooted in anti- and decolonial thought. Uncertain Intelligences unfolds through residencies, study groups, and public-facing formats, culminating in a public presentation at HKW in the summer of 2027.
House of Houses
Community Space
2026
HKW has always been a space of convention and exchange where various initiatives and communities of Berlin and beyond function as conversation partners for the institution. Through the House of Houses initiative, groups with a shared interest in working on similar issues as HKW—such as language and modes of translation, social justice, or communal forms of corporeal expression—are invited to use the space for their independent projects. Through their ongoing presence and regular exchange with the HKW team, the programming of the house can co-evolve. For House of Houses, a former conference room at HKW is reshaped as a community hub for Berlin, allowing for a direct exchange between the house and initiators. 2025 saw the building of structures and methodologies, as well as a process of feedback around this new initiative, reshaping and strengthening HKW’s engagement with the communities it serves. The pilot phase of the project began with a number of groups that HKW has been in conversation with for some time, such as Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research (AFSAR), Blackademy, and Kollektiv Wiese. From 2026, depending on availability, additional groups will be onboarded throughout the year.
Kids’ Disco
2026
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, always on Sundays or Saturdays, from 15:00 to 17:00.
Childcare is available in parallel to Kids’ Disco sessions and also alongside many other events. There are also special offers for children’s day care centres (Kitas) to take a tour through HKW and its exhibitions.
All these programmes for children are free of charge at HKW.
Dates
Sun., 22 February
Sun., 8 March
Sun., 19 April
Sun., 10 May
Sun., 14 June
Sun., 13 September
Sun., 25 October
Sun., 15 November
Sun., 13 December
Visit Information
Opening Times
Wed.–Mon. 12:00–19:00
Extended opening hours during evening programmes.
Free admission on Mondays
Childcare with programme
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
Maxie Fischer
Leitung Presse und Kommunikation
Head of Press and Communications
Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10 10557
Berlin
T: + 49 (0) 30 397 87 413