MoA's Annual Conference on 19 Sep 2025, 9 am-9 pm at silent green Kulturquartier
In the face of the current ecological predicament, substantial ›matters‹ are progressively getting ›out of hand‹, and require critical attention to their environmental, technological, and socio-material ambiguities. The annual conference of »Matters of Activity«, organized by Bastian Beyer, José D. Cojal González, Léa Perraudin, and Christian Stein, attends to such complexities by intertwining active matters on multiple scales with questions of modelling, making and playing on unsteady grounds. By convening a variety of interdisciplinary positions, we seek to inspire collaborative means to negotiate the legacies and futures of material-driven research.
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Long-term monitoring plot of a heath population rendered as point cloud. Remote sensing data and processing: Carsten Neumann and Nicole Köllner, Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam; Visualization: Jona Möller, 2025
Exhibition and Roundtable
»Blazing Heath/Heideglühen« explores the complex history and contested afterlife of former military training sites in Brandenburg. The exhibition examines how the toxic legacies of military occupation are made (in)visible and repurposed within scientific knowledge production. By integrating data-driven, visual, and sonic monitoring, a multi-channel video installation encourages you to engage with these uncanny landscapes.
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Swamp Things, Charlett Wenig, 2024. Photo: Janne Ebel, 2024
Exhibitions, Workshops and Panel
»Swamp Things!« invites peatland ecologies to the BHROX pavilion – haunting echoes of Berlin’s watery past as fenland formed from glacial meltwaters. The exhibition explores the lively potential of peatland plants through basketry, open-source coiling machines, and multimodal workshops.
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Beetle galleries on a spruce tree. Copyright: Karola Dierichs, Matters of Activity, Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces and weißensee school of art and design
Interdisciplinary Symposium and Workshop at Kunstgewerbemuseum
The symposium »Symbiotic Futures 2.0« is an open invitation for public discourse as the central event of the exhibition »Symbiotic Wood«. It is an open platform for exchange between disciplines and across individual perceptions. Topical themes will be »Symbiosis as Cognition«, »Symbiosis as Perception« and »Symbiosis as Creation«. These will be introduced in an interdisciplinary panel of lectures and a round table discussion by invited experts from the disciplines of materials science, cultural theory and design. The lectures are complemented by a series of smaller hands-on workshops in which participants can gather first-hand information on the symbiotic interaction with materials, such as earth, resin and wood.
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Beetle Galleries in Spruce Wood. Photo: Pelin Asa, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Matters of Activity, 2024; Graphic Design: NODE Berlin Oslo
Exhibition, Symposium, Roundtable and Tour
Climate change and monocultures have left forests vulnerable to insects and fungi. Beetle-infested wood is deemed less valuable from a traditional human-centric perspective. The group show »Symbiotic Wood« at Kunstgewerbemuseum focuses on this ›more-than-human‹ material that is co-owned with other species. It features contributions by artists, designers, architects, and cultural historians. Exhibition extended until 23 November 2025!
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Entangled – Architectural Yarns and Structural Textiles. Photo: Michelle Mantel, adapted with drawing: Natalija Miodragović, 2025
Workshop
»Entangled« brings together experts from materials research, architecture, textiles, and the humanities to discuss textile material practices in architecture. The workshop at Deutsches Architektur Zentrum invites the public to engage in conversations about the future of our built, grown, and woven environments. It builds on a network of academic and industry partners with expertise in textile technology and material flows. Registration is now open!
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Corrosion Cast of Liver Vessels, Dietrich Polenz, 2023. Image: Igor Sauer, 2025
Exhibition, Panels and Tour
Vessels are indispensable – for plants, animals, humans, and even our cities. As part of the ＿matter Festival 2025, this special exhibition at the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité, curated by Igor M. Sauer and Navena Widulin, offers exciting insights into these often-hidden structures. It shows how these vessels function and how they can be visualized, used and reproduced. A particular focus lies on the connections between natural vessels and human-made networks, such as the regulation of temperature in buildings or the water and wastewater supply in cities.
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Still with Eriselda Keshi (left) and Igor Sauer (right) at Experimental Surgery Lab of Charité Berlin from »Ein Herz auf Bestellung?«, Documentation by ARTE TV
Arbeit des Experimental Surgery Lab der Charité in ARTE Dokumentation portraitiert
Die Zahl der benötigten Spenderorgane wächst – doch es gibt zu wenige. Könnte die Zukunft der Transplantationsmedizin im Labor liegen? Die Doku wirft einen faszinierenden Blick auf die neuesten Entwicklungen rund um künstlich erzeugte Organe, an denen zum Beispiel im Experimental Surgery Lab an der Charité Berlin unter der Leitung von Clustermitglied Igor Sauer geforscht wird. Aus dezellularisierten Rattenlebern werden zukünftig hoffentlich funktionierende Bauchspeicheldrüsen.
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Article in the Tagesspiegel Highlights the Interdisciplinary Exhibition
At the center of the exhibition »Fermenting Textiles« is a greenish-brown shirt made of coarse fabric used for hunting. It was treated with vouwo, a dyeing method practiced in the Marka-Dafing community in Burkina Faso for generations. An interdisciplinary team from »Matters of Activity« has systematically researched the dyeing technique for the first time, together with a master dyer from the West African community of Safané. You can read about their findings and how they relate to today's fast fashion in a profound Tagesspiegel article by Martin Ballaschk. The exhibition can be seen at the Art Laboratory Berlin until July 6.
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Samples of woven cotton cloth dyed with mud (vouwo), Adama Séré - Marka-Dafing master dyer, 2020. Photo: Salif Sawadogo 2020
Exhibition and Talks
»Fermenting Textiles« explores the fermentation of textiles in mud and plant material. The exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin connects anthropology, microbiology, and art through the engagement of artisans, anthropologists, scientists, and artists and mirrors the multi-species collaborations that are integral to the mud dyeing process.
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Ailanthus altissima, Musée national d’histoire naturelle Luxembourg, title: Specimen № 15467, MNHNL 2000, license: CC BY 4.0, color and framing of this image were modified
Exhibition, Workshops, Audio Walk and Movie Night
Focusing on the agency of plant and tree collectives and their ability to shape entire ecologies, »Vegetal Companions« aims to critically reposition conventional human-centered concepts that highlight control and mastery over nature. In a close dialog with the botanical garden of Späth-Arboretum, »Vegetal Companions« explores different forms of knowledge creation, be it soil as archive, art as research, or philosophy as gardening.
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»Re-Enactment« mit lebenden Bakterien in einer großen Petrischale: Visualisierung der Interaktionen von Bakterien und den Schoten einer Pflanze, die bei der Schlammfärbung von Textilien von Bedeutung sind. (Foto: José I. Hernández Lobato und Regine Hengge/HU)
Interview mit Regine Hengge zu »Fermenting Textiles«
Im Interview spricht die Mikrobiologin Regine Hengge über die besondere Sichtweise des Exzellenzclusters »Matters of Activity« auf Materialien und was ihre Expertise auf dem Gebiet von Bakterien und Biofilmen damit zu tun hat. Die am 16. Mai 2025 eröffnete Ausstellung »Fermenting Textiles« im Art Laboratory Berlin, die die Ergebnisse ihrer Forschung zu traditionellen Färbetechniken in Afrika zeigt, ist der Anlass mit ihr über das Konzept aktiver Materialien und ihrem Nutzen zu sprechen sowie darüber, was naturwissenschaftliche Forschung von künstlerischen Herangehensweisen lernen kann.
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Latent Accumulations: Walking Along Paraffin Pollution at Nida Coastline. Film still: Anna Luise Schubert 2025
Exhibition, Roundtable and Workshop
Paraffin pollution is a recurring concern in coastal environments, yet one that is inherently difficult to detect and classify. The exhibition »Latent Accumulations« at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin traces the elusive activity of this material. It gives insights into site-specific research processes that connect material investigations with local experiences and memories of shifting landscapes.
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»Syntopolis« reef prototype in STARESO, Rasa Weber & Atelier Marie Drouet. Photo: Till Timmermann, 2024
Exhibition and Interactive Program
Design researcher and diver Rasa Weber takes on the challenge of creating an artificial reef in the river Spree, a project she calls »Syntopolis«. Streamed into the re:future lab, the reef will transform the institute’s exhibition space into an immersive aquatic habitat for encounters, experiences, and reflections on shared ecological futures. The registration for the interactive program such as a boat cruise is now open!
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Film Still taken from a film by Oula A. Valkeapää. Still: Oula A. Valkeapää, 2021
Exhibition, Talk and Tours
»Johtingeaidnu – The Path Within« is the first program highlight of the ＿matter Festival 2025. The exhibition at Schering Stiftung brings together two worlds: reindeer nomadism in the Arctic Sápmi region and the bioscience of epigenetics. Drawing on living relations within contemporary reindeer worlds and bioscientific research, the exhibition at materializes a world in which epigenetic memories are not only shared between humans but carried within ancestral migratory paths, called ›Johtingeaidnu‹. The exhibition opens on April 10th, 2025, 6:00 pm, followed by a conversation between artist Emilia Tikka and Miriam Liedvogel (Director Institute of Avian Research, Wilhelmshaven) on April 11th.
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Filmfactory Bitterfeld-Wolfen. Copyright: Rahel Kesselring
Spuren der Umweltgeschichte im Botanischen Garten des Späth-Arboretums
Für die prozesshafte Installation »Planted Archives« wurden Böden von verschiedenen umweltgeschichtlich bedeutsamen Standorten in den Botanischen Garten des Späth-Arboretums gebracht. Boden wird hier als Archiv verschiedener menschlicher und nicht-menschlicher Aktivitäten verstanden. Daher werden die verschiedenen Bodentypen unbehandelt gelassen, um die ungeplante Entwicklung von Pflanzen als Folge der Geschichte von Pflege und Aussaat, Entnahme und Verunreinigung zu beobachten. Ein Projekt von Rahel Kesselring und Maja Avnat in Kollaboration mit dem Späth-Arboretum: Anika Dreilich, Julia Kiehlmann, Mitja Skribelka and Christoph Hacker.
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Karte des Späth-Arboretum der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Ein Audiowalk für das Späth-Arboretum von Maja Avnat
Eine kulturwissenschaftlichkünstlerische Reflexion über den Garten und die Menschen, die ihn besuchen – im Format eines Audiowalks. Das Späth-Arboretum ist ein historischer Landschaftsgarten, in dem zahlreiche Gehölze wachsen – einige von ihnen bereits seit dem späten 19. Jahrhundert. Was sagt sein Erscheinungsbild über die Beziehung zwischen Menschen und Pflanzen aus? Und was können die Geschichten seiner Gehölze über diese Beziehungen erzählen?
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