Postscript: Kopfschnitt – The Akademie der Künste Podcast

What actually goes on at an academy of arts? Who works here, how is the programme put together and what are the concerns of the artists who are its members?

Since May 2025, Akademie president Manos Tsangaris and journalist Siegfried “Sigi” Ressel have been discussing these and other questions in Kopfschnitt, the podcast put out by the Akademie der Künste. It is recorded in a fitting part of the Akademie: the Studio for Electroacoustic Music on Hanseatenweg. Guests include members as well as staff and others connected with the Akademie and the issues it engages with. The conversations introduce their work and cover current projects and debates, while also providing a window on their personal experiences and memories.

The 19th episode marked a sad occasion: the death of the writer and Akademie member Péter Nádas. Katalin Madácsi-Laube of the Akademie’s Literature Archive and Matthias Weichelt, editor-in-chief of SINN UND FORM, talked about Nádas’s work, his long association with the Akademie and its journal and their personal encounters with him. 

Guests on earlier episodes have included the Akademie’s vice president, Anh-Linh Ngo, the director of the Performing Arts Section, Nele Hertling, filmmaker and author Andres Veiel and the writers Cécile Wajsbrot and Ingo Schulze. The most recent guest in the studio was photographer Harf Zimmermann.

The Akademie der Künste itself is also a recurring topic in the podcast. How does the JUNGE AKADEMIE work? What does KUNSTWELTEN, the Akademie’s arts educational programme, do? Who was the recipient of the latest Berlin [SC1] Art Prize? What can visitors see in the current exhibition Metaxy : Between Destruction and Reconstruction? For one episode, Kopfschnitt even travelled to Belgrade with the European Alliance of Academies.

Nineteen episodes in, the podcast has become another way to experience the Akademie der Künste and get to know it better: through the voices of the people who make art, exhibit, write, conduct research, debate and work here. 

Kopfschnitt comes out every one to two months and is available on the Akademie der Künste website at adk.de/podcast as well as on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.