Berlin Carousel
The Academy as a Living Artistic Practice
5/1/2026 – 6/7/2026

Over a period of five weeks, more than 40 international artists from various disciplines will be working on artistic projects at the Akademie der Künste, which will be presented to the public as part of a non-linear composition developed by Arnold Dreyblatt.

Since the 1990s, Arnold Dreyblatt has worked with the scoring of overlapping time sequences in order to make artistic processes visible. In doing so, he draws on John Cage’s Theatre Event No. 1 (1952), in which artists performed simultaneous activities amongst the audience within predefined time frames, as well as on Lawrence Halprin’s use of the score as a means of fostering “spontaneity and interaction” that are “not directed towards a specific outcome” (see The Rsvp Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment, 1970).

Berlin Carousel takes up Cage’s processes of circulation and further develops the idea of a non-centred composition. Dreyblatt envisions the Akademie der Künste as a temporary “working academy”, in which more than 40 Akademie members and invited artists from all disciplines engage in process-oriented research, discussion, performance and interaction. The open project space in an exhibition hall of the Akademie building on Hanseatenweg, conceived specifically for the project by the collective raumlaborberlin, becomes both a place of production and a space in which the boundaries of artistic categories are crossed and expanded.

A schedule displays when individual artists or groups are active in the space. Over a period of five weeks, visitors are invited daily between 2 and 7 pm to observe artistic practice in progress and to participate in it. At evening events, the participating artists and collectives will present both the events developed within the space and further works. Interdisciplinarity, as well as time- and process-based art forms that can be experienced within this open working process, form the core of the project.

Hubertus von Amelunxen, Arno Brandlhuber, Andreas Bülhoff, Benedetta Castrioto, Jan Faktor, Dani Gal, Ulrike Grossarth, Constanze Haas, Gary Hurst, Petja Ivanova, Käthe Kruse, Claus Löser, Anton Lukoszevieze, Marc Matter, Nanne Meyer, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Mouse on Mars, Hajnal Nemeth, Marcel Odenbach, Daniel Ott, An Paenhuysen, Jovana Popic, Steffen Reck, Stefan Römer, Julia Scher, Eva-Maria Schön, Christoph Tannert, Jakob Ullmann, Andreas Rost, Cécile Wajsbrot, Raul Walch, Sasha Waltz, Jan St. Werner, Jeremy Woodruff, Walter Zimmermann and others

Further contributions by Versatorium Vienna, Studio for Electroacoustic Music, International Artists Forum (IKG), Sound Practice Research Collective (SPRK) at the Folkwang University of the Arts, Berlin School of Sound, raumlaborberlin and others

30 Apr 7 pm

Opening with speeches on the staircase, performances and party
With Manos Tsangaris, Arnold Dreyblatt, raumlaborberlin
Marc Matter, Sound Practice Research Collective (SPRK) at the Folkwang University of the Arts

From 9 pm DJ set with Anna Butter, Mouse on Mars

1 May – 7 Jun

Conversely Yours, Jan Werner, 2024
In-house intervention

Unhörbar, Käthe Kruse, 2026
Open studio

Unwalling Hanseatenweg, Arno Brandlhuber, Constanze Haas, Manuel de Villiers
Research project

fm-scenario.net, Eran Schaerf, 2013
Intermedia project

Portrait Archive – a video work for Berlin Carousel, Gary Hurst

1 May – 3 Jun

Dani Gal and Ari Benjamin Meyers with guests
Sound project

Closing presentation: 3 Jun 8:30 pm

1–3 May

Sound Practice Research Collective (SPRK) at the Folkwang University of the Arts, class of Jan St. Werner
Performances

2 May 2 pm

Kunst aus dem Koffer, 30 Berlin-based IKG artists (International Artists’ Committee) with works from their suitcases
Talks and table display
DE

5–10 May

La fête permanente. A mini-Filliou-school. On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Robert Filliou and the 1,000,063th Birthday of Art
Curators: An Paenhuysen and Benedetta Castrioto
With Tomas Bächli, Greta Casà, Charlotte Dualé, Helga Franza
Workshops, talks, performances
DE/EN

BREAK DANCE BREAK, a cyclical, repetitive piece by Hajnal Nemeth

Breakdance workouts: 5–9 May 4–7 pm
Closing event: 10 May 6 pm
EN

5 May 7 pm

Vom Leck-Mich zum IstdochgarnichtsoübeldieseDDR, Jan Faktor and Christoph Tannert
Talk
DE

5 May 8:30 pm

Kontaktbögen, Steffen Reck and Dr. Claus Löser about the East Berlin theatre group Zinnober, Super 8 and VHS footage
Film and talk
DE

9 May 7 pm

Solo for Balloons, George Mačiunas, 1962
Performance: Anton Lukoszevieze
Introduction and talk: Hubertus von Amelunxen
DE

12–15 May

Spoken Matter Radio by Andreas Bülhoff and Marc Matter
With Alfredo Costa-Monteiro, Adrienne Herr, DJ Shlucht
Creative assistant: Silja Beck

Performance: 14 May 8 pm

13 May 3–6 pm

for the time being, Sasha Waltz
A workshop on collectively experiencing the moment

17 / 21 May from 5 pm

Discursive dinner with raumlaborberlin
Clubroom

19–25 May

Discussique: den Tagen zuzuhören, Sonic Borderlines
With 7 international singers, composed by Jeremy Woodruff
Learning and Rehearsal Process on Display

Closing event: 25 May 5 pm
EN

19–24 May

Papiertheater, Versatorium – Association for Poetry and Translation
With Sophia Barthelmes, Anna Eble, Marion Maurin, Mathias Müller, Felix Reinstadler and guests
Workshops
DE

26–28 May 2–3:30 pm

Kunst und Autonomie, Aktivismus, Akademie, Ambient, Anti-Avantgarde, Stefan Römers reading group, joint reading and discussion of relevant texts on art and self-organisation
Participatory workshop

27 May 5–7 pm

How to Academy, members of the Akademie der Künste and the Sächsische Akademie der Künste
Closed event

28 May 4–6:30 pm

public exercises by and with Ulrike Grossarth
Movement workshop
DE/EN

28 May 7 pm

ReCoder-Filmzyklus (Römer, 2026, 45 min) and Decoder (Mucha 1984, 80 min), Stefan Römer, Valérie Renay et al.
Film and talk
DE

30 May 8 pm

Unwalling Hanseatenweg, Arno Brandlhuber, Constanze Haas, Manuel de Villiers
Concert and reading 

31 May

Café Climate: Narratives about possible futures (working title)
With Manuele Gragnolati, Christoph Holzhey, Petja Ivanovna, Jovana Popic, Iris ter Schiphorst, Cécile Wajsbrot
DE

2–7 Jun

Flachmeer, hohe Kapsel (working title), Shooting for a non-commercial film project by Steffen Reck

Zugabe, Nanne Meyer and Eva-Maria Schön, since 2010
Postcard exchanges
Open studio

3 Jun 7 pm 

3927 Wörter
With Käthe Kruse (voice), Myriam El Haik (piano), Edda Kruse Rosset (drums)
Performance

3 Jun 8:30 pm

Dani Gal and Ari Benjamin Meyers with guests
Closing presentation
EN

5 Jun 7 pm

John Cage’s Musicircus in East and West
With Arnold Dreyblatt, Jakob Ullmann, Walter Zimmermann
Talk and music
DE

5 Jun 8:30 pm

Circuit Stories, Malte Giesen and Dustin Zorn on historical and modern instruments from the Studio for Electroacoustic Music
Live electronic lecture-performance
DE

6 Jun 4 pm

Nanne Meyer and Eva-Maria Schön
Performance and talk
DE

7 Jun

Finissage