Special Opening of the “Vessel & Voyager” Exhibition
25 May 2026, 11 am – 7 pm

As part of the nationwide Ehrentag marking the anniversary of Germany’s Basic Law, (Grundgesetz), the Akademie der Künste is contributing a special programme to the action days in May 2026. Together with Berlin's Queer History Month, we would like to celebrate diversity, civic engagement and queer visibility.

Democracy lives through people who get involved. Many queer communities, initiatives and support structures have been sustained for decades by voluntary commitment – often unseen, yet of great social importance. On this day, we would like to honour this work and make it visible.

For this reason, on Whit Monday, 25 May 2026, the Akademie der Künste invites all people engaged in voluntary work – and everybody who is interested – to visit the exhibition “Vessel & Voyager” free of charge.

As a special programme, we are offering two queer drag tours through the exhibition with Cali Harburg: 3 pm in German, and 5 pm in English. The tours invite visitors to experience the exhibition from queer perspectives and to enter into conversation about diversity, visibility and social togetherness – openly, humorously and with joy in different lived realities.

All interested visitors are warmly welcome.

25 artists are showing off their new work, which they made during their residencies, at the “Vessel & Voyager” exhibition by JUNGE AKADEMIE, the international and interdisciplinary fellowship programme of the Akademie der Künste, in the Academy building on Hanseatenweg. They explore scope for artistic creation and action in times of diverse and escalating crises and deal with the themes of loss and memory, body and healing, protection and community. The exhibition features photographs, prints, collages, video works, spatial and sound installations, sculptures, drawings, and assemblages.

The title “Vessel & Voyager” refers to the themes of containers (vessels) and travelers (voyagers), which are prominent in artistic, cultural, and spiritual contexts. The exhibition uses “Vessel” in its meaning as a container that stores, transmits, and constantly transforms various narratives, messages, and voices. “Voyager”, in turn, stands for travelers who create connections between places, generations, and times. Vessel & Voyager represent the perception of an intertwined, changing present in which possibilities of imagination and speculation around grief, renewal, and resistance are renegotiated.

The deep temporal layers of human bodies are explored artistically. Hundreds of drawings tell of conversations with ancestors and trees. An installation shows the ambivalence of a world in flames between protest and destruction. Metal sculptures that capture collapse in motion bend toward the viewer. A film directs our gaze toward the sky as a mirror and window, teaching us a new way of seeing historical narratives and their inherent power structures. These and other works combine the search for consciousness and language and raise questions about tradition, responsibility, and vulnerability as the foundation of artistic creation.