Berlin Summer University of the Arts

The performance workshop TOOLS FOR SCIENCE FICTION PERFORMANCE will show you how to unleash utopian potential within your creations 🔮

Challenging the common definition of u-topia as a place that does not exist, and .feigl will introduce tools and methods that allow you to identify and articulate utopian potentials within the artistic scenarios you are creating. Along those lines, the course will also work towards a more precise understanding of limits that keep us from following the ways to utopia: limits we set for ourselves and limits which are set for us by cultural and social contexts.

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Register now:
Tools for Science Fiction Performance
10 – 14 June
Registration open until 12 May

In August, Işıl Eğrikavuk and Silvia Gioberti will be teaching the course NO UTOPIA: ARTIVISM AND COLLECTIVE ACTION TODAY. We asked them: What does utopia mean to you and what is the role of art within it?

“Utopia as a speculative and evolving concept fuels imagination and collective action. It is not a fixed ideal but a tool for challenging existing socio-political norms and inspiring alternative futures. In the face of urban inequality and exclusion, we will reflect on how art can act as a catalyst for collaboration and reimagining what is possible, making space for voices that are often ignored.”

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Register now:
NO UTOPIA: Artivism and Collective Action Today
4 – 8 August
Registration open until 6 July

Introducing: NO UTOPIA: ARTIVISM AND COLLECTIVE ACTION TODAY hosted by Işıl Eğrikavuk and Silvia Gioberti

The course offers a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment. We will take a hands-on approach by planning small-scale interventions, learning from local struggles, and contributing to temporary reimaginings of public spaces. This will be more than just theory - we will seize the opportunity to act, experiment, and provoke change collectively.

We will focus on visiting and exchanging dialogues with different artivist groups in Berlin as well as planning small interventions within the urban spaces in the city.

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Register now:
NO UTOPIA: Artivism and Collective Action Today
4 – 8 August
Registration open until 6 July

Introducing: NO UTOPIA: ARTIVISM AND COLLECTIVE ACTION TODAY​ hosted by Işıl Eğrikavuk and Silvia Gioberti
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In this workshop, we will visit artivist groups and create urban interventions to critically examine “utopia” not as an unreachable ideal, but as a space for collective action, alternative futures, and myth-making within Berlin’s dynamic social fabric. “Utopia” is our tool to question and re-imagine urban spaces and power structures.

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Register now:
NO UTOPIA: Artivism and Collective Action Today
4 – 8 August
Registration open until 6 July

Introducing: AESTHETIC TRANSFORMATION PROCESSES: INSPIRATION ACROSS DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES hosted by Elvira Hufschmid and Margit Schild 🔮🖼️

In this workshop, we view and teach artistic production as a collaborative practice of give and take. This approach, which transcends the traditional notion of ‘individual creativity,’ fosters a deep connection between participants. It offers them the opportunity to experience artistic creation from a new and authentic perspective. Through this process, we facilitate an artistic dialogue and provide a space for meaningful encounter and self-reflection.

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Register now:
Aesthetic Transformation Processes: Inspiration across Disciplinary Boundaries
30 June – 4 July
Registration open until 1 June

📸 Ella Pienkoß

Introducing: UTOPIAN RELATIONSHIPS: AUTOETHNOGRAPHIES OF NATURECULTURES hosted by Johanna Kirschbauer and 🌿

Look forward to a workshop full of sensory experiences, including exciting research practices such as acoustic fieldnotes, sound collages, poetry and visual art. At a unique location — the — we will collaboratively create artistic responses to Berlin’s natural cultural phenomena.

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Utopian Relationships: Autoethnographies of Naturecultures

30 June – 4 July

Registration open until 1 June

Introducing the workshop BERLIN MODULAR MUSIC CULTURE – AESTHETIC AND SOCIAL POTENTIALS hosted by Kim Feser and Jessica Kert 🌐⛓️‍💥

Berlin is a centre of electronic music – not only because of its clubs and festivals, but also because of the extensive network in which electronic music hard- and software is developed, tested and distributed.

This workshop combines the aesthetic potential of using modular synthesizers with insights on the social dimensions of Berlin’s synthesizer culture and its utopian, dystopian and heterotopian aspects. On the basis of hands-on sessions and excursions into the Berlin developer scene, you will learn how to work with modular synthesizers and get the opportunity to realize your own projects under professional guidance.

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Register now:

Berlin Modular Music Culture - Aesthetic and Social Potentials
Suited both for beginners and advanced level
25 – 30 August
Registration open until 27 July


📸 Philomena Lauprecht

Introducing: VISUALISING URBAN RESILIENCE THROUGH FILM hosted by Mirjana Mitrovic and Insa Langhorst 🌐📹

During the workshop we will use the walking practice of flânerie in combination with film to track down „utopian cadavers“. We will visit and research several spaces in Berlin that are connected to some form of utopian concepts or ideas, either having failed or still being acted out. What do they say about the past and the present? How can their examples help us create resilient cities?

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Register now:
Visualising Urban Resilience through Film
18 – 22 August
Registration open until 20 July


📸 Mirjana Mitrovic

Introducing: OVERWRITING BERLIN: UTOPIAN FUTURES hosted by Stefan Mießeler 🔮

In this workshop we are building utopias: we are overwriting the present with our visions of the future by creating immersive audiowalks.

How will we live in 500 years? What challenges will we face as human beings? Will we live in a digital utopia, in new beautiful techno-realities? Can we still live on the planet’s surface? Will there be new forms of artificial life? Will we have conquered the threatening crises of today — global warming, wars, authoritarian governments, gender inequality? We will tackle these questions and build our “Utopian Futures”!

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Register now: Overwriting Berlin: Utopian Futures
18 – 22 August
Registration open until 20 July

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These Photos were taken during the utopian audio walk “The Time After” in Ulaanbaatar exploring the future potentials of the city, developed with students of the Mongolian State University of Arts under the direction of Stefan Mießeler.

📸 Lukas Müller


university

Introducing: TOWARDS A FUTURE THAT IS ACCESSIBLE

This 3-day workshop is led by Dramaturge/ Research Associate Luke Pell and Producer/ Artistic Associate Nadja Dias from the Choreography, Dance & Disability Arts Team as part of the artistic professorship of artist Claire Cunningham, based at .

You can look forward to:

• An introduction to some of the critical thinking and disability justice principles that underpin this work.

• Discussion on how concepts of access and an aesthetics of access arise from specific lived experiences

• Explorations as to how we can cultivate better ‘crip’ conditions via more intentional choreographies of care

• Practical propositions for developing, adapting and transforming producing structures, creative processes, artist research and development opportunities, as well as models of touring and presentation.

• Dreaming and manifesting our own antidotes to able-ism

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Dates: 31 July – 2 August
Registration open until 5 June


📸 Jassy Earl


university

The workshop SOME PRACTICAL CITY MAGIC puts UTOPIA at the centre of its concept. Together with hosts Sabine Zahn and Daniel Belasco Rogers you will venture out across Berlin, engaging with the city through somatic/choreographic bodywork, imaginative practices and other collective urban activities.

Sabine and Daniel describe their vision of utopia like this: “We are troubled that Utopia means non-place because place is such an intrinsic part of what we work with. On the other hand, we have the idea of a city that is made by and for everyone and every activity, that grows food for us, that provides places to congregate without having to consume, where we cultivate as many forms to be and express ourselves as we want, where we can feel the cool earth on which it is founded or the dense relations, that produce its life(s). Now that would be something to strive for, surely.”

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Register now: Some Practical City Magic
7 – 11 July
Registration open until 8 June

university

Introducing: UTOPIAS ON TRACKS: ART AND TRAIN hosted by Natalia Irina Roman 🚂

Hidden along Berlin’s railway tracks are otherworldly spaces that blur the line between existence and imagination. In this workshop, we’ll uncover these “in-between” worlds – such as former interlocking towers of the German railway company Deutsche Bahn and control posts of the former subway organization BVG – exploring how they bridge utopia and heterotopia.

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Register now: Utopias on Tracks: Art and Train

30 July – 7 August

Application open until July 1st

Introducing Justina Moncevičiūtė, Lithuanian born artist, designer and lecturer. From 7 – 11 July Justina will host the workshop MATERIAL FICTIONS: HAPTIC NARRATIVES OF (UN)SPACES at . Registration is open!

This five-day workshop will explore the juxtapositions between digital and analog realms, as well as between fiction and the tangible. Participants will explore the cultural and sensory significance of touch through theoretical research and conduct hands-on experiments with analog materials. Textile processes will serve as a medium for artistic exploration and community building. Students will develop skills in textile technologies that can be applied to various creative practices. Additionally, two field trips will offer insight into the work of Berlin-based artists.

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Register now: Material Fictions: Haptic Narratives of (Un)Spaces
7 – 11 July
Registration open until 8 June


📸 Gedvilė Tamošiūnaitė



university

Introducing: TOOLS FOR SCIENCE FICTION PERFORMANCE hosted by and .feigl 🔮

This workshop will introduce tools and methods that allow you to identify and articulate utopian potentials within the artistic scenarios you are creating. The programme addresses performance practices from solo, through duo and trio to group exercises and includes moderate theoretical contexts, discussions, writing exercises and DIY techniques. Topics will include scenario planning, game theory, salsa aerobic, permaculture design principles, role-playing and instant costume design, among others.

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Register now:

Tools for Science Fiction Performance

10 – 14 June

Registration open until 12 May

🚀Introducing: THE (ART-)SCHOOL OF PROVISIONAL. ARTISTIC PRACTICE IN TIMES OF CRISES hosted by Margit Schild

This workshop offers the opportunity to experience artistic creation from a new perspective: There is a broad commonality between art and crises: mechanisms and framework conditions that trigger a crisis can be congruent with those that generate creativity, according to the principle that necessity is the mother of invention. This means that new things are created when there is a particular need for them. Participants gain a deep understanding of the underlying mechanisms and can then apply them to their own artistic work.

The consideration of both art and disasters as spaces for invention paves the way for or the elaboration of exciting artistic-aesthetic processes, which are the focus here.

Participants will also experience a wonderful group atmosphere in which it is easy to work.

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The (Art-)School of Provisional. Artistic Practice in times of Crises

23 – 27 June

Registration open until 25 May

During the workshop DRAWING PLANTS. A JOURNEY TO THE WORLD OF PLANTS, hosted by .h.hille, you will study plants from multiple approaches: through on-site exploration, historical plant samples, and under the microscope.

Based on intensive study after observation, we want to investigate how close reality and fiction are to each other and how they can cross-fertilize each other in the artistic process.

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Register now: Drawing Plants. A Journey into the World of Plants

28 July – 1 August

Registration open until 29 June

📸 Kerstin Hille

Introducing: FRAGMENTS OF THE FUTURE hosted by 🪨🔥

The workshop explores utopia as potentiality, thinking beyond the present into past and future.Through the production of charcoal, site-specific works and drawings, we engage with living and nonliving materials, we reflect on earth, plants, and trees as interconnected elements. Using charcoal as a post-natural material, we investigate deep time and transformation, imagining what kind of potential world we are dreaming of and how it relates to the Earth itself.


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Fragments of the Future
21 – 25 July
Registration open until 22 June

Credits:
1: Ulrike Mohr, Time in a Tree, 2020
2: Ulrike Mohr, Raumzeichnung mit geköhlerten Birkenrinden. 2025
3: Performanceabruck mit Holzkohlepulver - Grundlehre UdK Berlin, Hande Şevval Emirmahmutoğlu, 2025

🌟Introducing: AESTHETIC TRANSFORMATION PROCESSES:INSPIRATION ACROSS DISCIPLINARY BOUNDARIES hosted by Elvira Hufschmid and Margit Schild

The link between Utopia and our workshop methodology, Aesthetic Transformation, lies in their shared emphasis on imagination, creativity, and the exploration of alternative realms. Although stemming from different traditions and perspectives, both concepts inspire imaginative thinking that goes beyond the ordinary and challenges conventional ways of experiencing the world. Utopian thinking and art are inherently visionary and speculative, often proposing radical departures from the status quo.


Register now:
Aesthetic Transformation Processes: Inspiration across Disciplinary Boundaries
30 June – 4 July
Registration open until 1 June

📷 Margit Schild