Postscript: Vessel & Voyager
Clara Herrmann and Linnéa Meiners

Came the moon, at last, which gave
disrepair: vessel and voyager,
despair. Humanspeak.

Logan February, Relation in Movement, 1977

Since 2007 the Akademie der Künste has invited international artists from all sections of the arts to its studios on Hanseatenweg, and since the 1960s to Villa Serpentara in Olevano Romano for the JUNGE AKADEMIE artist-in-residence programme. Travel, shifts in perspective and the interweaving of the different aesthetics, experiences, history and stories that artists bring with them shape the collective experience, instilling meaning and forging connections across artistic, geographical and political boundaries.

Under the title Vessel & Voyager, inspired by Logan February’s poem about speechlessness, transience and the parallel modes of existence of the artistic subject, 25 fellows present new works in an exhibition at the Akademie der Künste. Offering a dynamic frame of reference, the two motifs provide scope for for artistic creation and action in these times of multiple, escalating crises, which are being spotlighted the international community of fellows. Loss and memory, body and healing, protection and community emerge as the central themes explored through a range of media, including photography, video works, installations, sculpture, drawings and assemblages.

Across all artistic disciplines and in different spiritual, mythological and cultural contexts, vessels and voyagers are prominent subjects. The exhibition makes use of Vessel in its meaning as a container that stores, transmits, constantly transforms and interweaves different narratives, messages and voices. Voyager, in turn, stands for travellers who create connections between places, generations, times and dimensions. Vessel & Voyager represents the perception of an interlinked, constantly changing present in which possibilities of imagination and speculation on grief, renewal and resistance are renegotiated.

Three central questions open the exhibition to exploration: What is lost and what is not told? How do we remember, and where do we come from? What do we protect and how do we connect? The artists’ works bring together the search for consciousness and language and raise questions about cultural transmission, responsibility and vulnerability as the basis for artistic creation. The exhibition is accompanied by the symposium Songs of Serpents, which deals with art, landscape and eco-feminism, and the performance programme Echoes, Ghosts, Songs & Soils.

With Ilit Azoulay, Patrizia Bach, Fanny Brandauer, Huihui Cheng, Isabel Cruz, Éléonore de Duve, Eva Dessecker, Anna Dobrova / METALAB, Sarah Doerfel, Jug Đorđević, Claudia Durastanti, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, Nina Emge, Logan February, Solomon Garçon, gruppe-aja, Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo, Dominique Hurth, Mehdi Jahan, Khensani Jurczok-de Klerk, René Kemp, Zita Leutgeb, Josephine Macken, Regina Menke, Marina Naprushkina, Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Hrishikesh Pawar, Sinan Samanli, Sophie Seita, Sara Stevanović, Diána Vonnák, Franziska Wenning, Hana Yoo, Saikal Zhunush

Translated by Peter Rigney

Clara Herrmann is head of the JUNGE AKADEMIE of the Akademie der Künste. Linnéa Meiners is a curator, artist, and curatorial fellow at the JUNGEN AKADEMIE 2025/26.