Dear friends of Matters of Activity,

With great pleasure, we hereby introduce you to the fantastic program of the ＿matter Festival 2025, curated by Sophia Gräfe, Peter Fratzl, and Claudia Mareis! From April to October, numerous MoA members will be giving interested guests insights into the results of the Cluster research at 12 locations in the city, be it in exhibitions, workshops, talks or tours.

The festival kicks off on April 10th at the Schering Stiftung with the opening of the exhibition »Johtingeaidnu - The Path Within« by artist-researcher Emilia Tikka, reindeer herder Oula A. Valkeapää and artist-researcher Leena Valkeapää. We look forward to seeing many of you there! Or you'll join us when the exhibition »Bauhaus Ecologies« opens at the Bauhaus Museum in Dessau on the same day, for which the team around Bastian Beyer contributes the contemporary point of view in the form of an extended version of the »Co-Weaving Biofilms« installation. 

Finally, we would like to recommend the recently opened exhibition at Haus am Kleistpark by Kathrin Linkersdorff, which features the latest photographs taken in collaboration with microbiologist Regine Hengge.

We wish you a happy reading!
Antje Nestler & Carolin Ott

Science Communication What will our built environment and urban development look like in the future? What role will a new approach to materials play? This was the topic of BUA Open Space #4 on 19 February 2025 in the former tower of Tempelhof Airport. Cluster Co-Director Claudia Mareis was joined on the panel by architect and Technical University professor Anupama Kundoo and Berlin's former Senate Building Director Regula Lüscher. Following the stimulating discussion, the guests gained insights into state-of-the-art research and practice on materials that have so far been rather unusual in a pop-up exhibition.  → more

Object Space Agency | Publications Das 21. Jahrhundert muss als ein Zeitalter des Spiels verstanden werden. Dies zum einen, da die Kulturtechnik des Spiels alle anderen Medientechniken inkludiert, zum anderen, da das Avancieren der Computerspiele zum neuen Leitmedium und die Ausweitung des Spiels in die militärische und politische Sphäre als Zeichen einer globalen Radikalisierung des Spiels interpretiert werden kann. Das Spiel mit dem genetischen Code könnte darüber hinaus sogar dazu führen, dass der Mensch, verstanden als Homo Ludens, in naher Zukunft von der Weltbühne verschwindet. Thomas Lilge entwickelt aus der Gegenüberstellung von Videospielklassikern mit theoretischen Texten von u.a. Freud und Wittgenstein Vorschläge, wie man das Spiel in seinen mannigfaltigen und oft maskierten Erscheinungsformen identifizieren kann.  → more

Achievements | Bauhaus We warmly congratulate Cluster Co-Director Claudia Mareis on her appointment to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation! The Scientific Advisory Board advises the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation on specialist issues and is made up of experts from architecture, art history, design, and related disciplines. Due to their expertise and their engagement with current social discourses, they will also play a valuable role concerning the anniversary »An die Substanz. Bauhaus Dessau 100«. → more

Diffractive submersion does not produce stable foundations but instead invites continuous reconfigurations of meaning and matter. Each iteration of drifting, sinking, emerging, and repeating reshapes the conditions of knowledge, making space for collaborative, inventive, and multimodal engagements that resist disciplinary enclosure. The works in this exhibition enact these movements of diffractive engagement, embodying the fragility, vitality, and persistence of multimodal inquiry. A digital catalog of the exhibition is now available online. → more

Filtering | Publications We are thrilled to announce the third volume of the Cluster’s Raw Studies series, Gestaltungsmetrik: Parallel transport in arts and culture for topological and holonomical activity, co-authored by Horst Bredekamp and Carlos-Andres Palma, with a commentary by Christian Kassung. This treatise introduces Gestaltungsmetrik as a conceptual framework for studying and designing informal space, from image and Gestaltung to anatomy and materials.  → more

Weaving | Bacteria | Biofilm | More-Than-Human | Temporality Circularity and sustainability of material flows are hallmarks of intact ecosystems. This principle has now been stunningly visualized in ultrahigh resolution, large format photographs - the MICROVERSE series - created by Kathrin Linkersdorff in collaboration with Regine Hengge, Professor for Microbiology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The exhibition at Haus am Kleistpark (Berlin-Schöneberg) will be on view until June 8th, 2025. → more

Cutting | Graphic Anthropology Cluster member Maxime Le Calvé is invited to take part in a panel discussion and present his experience and views on producing and evaluating ethnographic image essays at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge. The workshop is titled »Ethnographic Expressions: Evaluating multimodal forms«. → more

Material Form Function | Climate | Water | Science Communication The exhibition »muddy measures. when wetlands and heritage converse« examines the relationship between wetlands and heritage. How does a heritage perspective reshape our understanding of wetlands? The exhibition is organized by Cluster Associated Member Yoonha Kim, together with Juliana Robles de la Pava and Margareta von Oswald and entails works of the Cluster members Charlett Wenig and Lucy Norris as well as Léa Perraudin and Iva Rešetar as part of the ＿matter festival. The opening will take place on March 27th at 6.00 pm. There will be a guided tour at 6.30 pm, followed by a reception.  → more

Science Communication Wir freuen uns sehr, euch zur fünften Folge der Pub-Quiz-Reihe der Berliner Exzellenzcluster am Montag, den 8. September, in die fahimi bar nach Kreuzberg einzuladen. An diesem spätsommerlichen Quizabend wird die Forschung von »Matters of Activity« mit einer dazu passenden Live-Performance im Fokus stehen. Fragen aus den Bereichen aller Berliner Cluster ergänzen den zweistündigen Rätselabend, der von Jochen Müller moderiert wird. Also, sucht Mitstreiterinnen, denkt euch Teamnamen aus und taucht ein in die wunderbare Welt der Forschung – wir freuen uns auf euch! → more

＿matter Festival 2025 Matter shapes our existence, although we tend to forget about its activity in everyday life. The ＿matter Festival 2025 sheds new light on material agencies. Curated by Sophia Gräfe, Claudia Mareis and Peter Fratzl, it establishes a network between the Cluster and 12 Berlin institutions working at the intersection of science, art and design. The festival program includes a series of exhibitions, accompanied by around 35 events from April to October 2025.

The whole program is now online and can be visited at ↗ matters-of-activity.de/_matter.

The festival program will be inaugurated on April 10th, 2025, at 6:00 pm at the Schering Foundation, see more information in the post below. → more

Material Form Function | ＿matter Festival 2025 | Speculative Design | Science Communication | Climate | More-Than-Human | Temporality »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. → more

Material Form Function | Weaving | Bacteria | Bauhaus | Biodesign | Biofilm | Cellulose Was the historic Bauhaus interested in ecology? Presumably in a different context than today. The exhibition »Bauhaus Ecologies«, on view from April 11th to November 2nd, 2025 at Bauhaus Museum Dessau, explores approaches to ecological thinking in modern design. We are thrilled to share that the exhibition also features the installation »Bacterial ­Cellulose: Co-Weaving Biofilms« developed in the Cluster of Excellence »Matters of Activity«. The project of architects Bastian Beyer and Iva Rešetar and microbiologist Regine Hengge presents the latest results of research at the interface between design, materials science, and ­biology. → more

CALL The Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation, a BMBF-funded Käte Hamburger Kolleg based at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, is pleased to invite applications for its fellowship program, which will run from 1 October 2026 to 31 July 2027. This opportunity is open to both experienced and early-career postdoctoral researchers, as well as artists, filmmakers, and curators. The deadline for submission is 14 April 2025.

The Centre explores historical, contemporary, and potential future transformations in heritage and hosts up to fifteen international fellows each year to pursue their research. The topic for applications for fellowships for 2026-7 is Addressing Heritage Loss. Applications should also relate to one or more of our guiding themes: decentring the west. decentring the human, and transforming value. 

Researchers and topics from areas currently underrepresented in heritage scholarship, including the global South and Eastern Europe, are especially encouraged to apply.

For more information about the call, see ↗ https://inherit.hu-berlin.de/open-call

Biodesign | Climate | More-Than-Human | Speculative Design The German Society for Design Theory and Research (DGTF), in collaboration with the Chair of Digital Cultures TU Dresden, invites participants to critically engage with the theme »Planetary Experiments: Environments by Design«. This conference, organized by Michaela Büsse among others, explores the diverse perspectives and practices of design research and theory in addressing the far-reaching ecological, social and technological challenges of our time. Over the course of one day and in a hybrid setup (Dresden & remote), they will bring together scholars and practitioners, like Cluster member Rasa Weber, to engage in keynote talks, panel discussions and practice presentations that critically explore the concept of »Planetary Experiments«. → more