Kyiv Biennial. A Bird That Cannot Land  – KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin) | from 06/10/26

On June 10, 2026, KW Institute for Contemporary Art will open “A Bird That Cannot Land,” a chapter of the Kyiv Biennial with an extensive program of exhibitions, live events, and discussions, spanning all floors of the building throughout the summer. This chapter is curated by KW’s team of curators and organized in close collaboration with the Visual Culture Research Center, the founding institution of the Kyiv Biennial.

Image Caption: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Foto: Frank Sperling.

The Kyiv Biennial is a nomadic, international project that interweaves artistic, political, and social issues. For its tenth anniversary in 2025, it took place across Europe, encompassing a series of exhibitions and events, including at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the M HKA in Antwerp, the Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture, the Dovzhenko Centre in Kyiv, and the Lentos Art Museum in Linz. The works and themes presented at these various venues form the basis for A Bird That Cannot Land, the chapter of the Biennial held at KW Institute for Contemporary Art. This chapter comprises an extensive live program and a large-scale exhibition spanning the entire building, expanding the Biennial’s reflections through contemporary art, sound, and discourse.

KW Curatorial Team

Curator: Sofie Krogh Christensen
Assistant Curator: Linda Franken
Exhibition Assistant: Radia Soukni

Live Curator: Lorena Juan
Live Assistant Curator: Nikolas Brummer
Live Program Assistant: Saba Bagheri

Discourse Program Curator: Vasyl Cherepanyn
Discourse Program Assistant: Triin Metsla

Extended Curatorial Team

Vasyl Cherepanyn, Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC), Kyiv
Emma Enderby, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Nav Haq, M HKA – Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
Sarah Jonas, Lentos Art Museum, Linz
Serge Klymko, Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC), Kyiv
Magda Lipska, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Against the backdrop of escalating conflicts and shifting political realities, A Bird That Cannot Land focuses on the concept of a “Middle-Eastern Europe” and its colonial and imperial histories. By expanding the scope of the Kyiv Biennial and linking post-Soviet Europe with the Baltic states, Central and Southwest Asia, and the Mediterranean region, the exhibition, together with its live and discussion programs, aims to create spaces where intertwined pasts and present narratives become audible. It seeks to re-examine how geographies, histories, and realities are narrated and perceived.

The exhibition features works from the itinerant Kyiv Biennial, complemented by new pieces produced specifically for Berlin. The extensive live program explores notions of memory, displacement, and belonging, focusing on relational and embodied practices by transnational artists from Berlin’s diasporic communities.

WHEN?

EXHIBITION DATES: Start Wednesday, 10. Juni 2026

WHERE?

KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
10117 Berlin