Since its inception, the Carnival of Cultures has shaped Berlin’s cultural identity as a place of diversity, encounter and public appropriation of urban space. Straddling the lines between celebration, political expression and social projection, the event simultaneously raises complex questions of visibility, representation and attribution. The exhibition, which takes place from 13–26 May 2026 at Kunstquartier Bethanien (Studio 1), takes these areas of tension as its starting point and examines the Carnival as a cultural phenomenon situated between liberation and performance.
Image above: Form the Series “Mumienglanz”, © Nancy Torres
The exhibition takes as its starting point a central paradox: since its inception in 1996, the Carnival of Cultures has been a place of liberation, where the street is transformed into the city’s greatest stage. Bodies take up space and are allowed to be loud, and the community becomes the focal point of public life. At the same time, the Carnival has established itself as a mirror of exoticising desire: a festival in which ‘cultures’ – or worse still, nations – present themselves, and which stages an idea of authenticity that is nothing more than the reflection of what is considered foreign and desirable.
Carnival is meant to be loud and absurd: people take to the streets in costume and as a community to turn the established order on its head, to laugh at power, and to make exaggeration a principle. And yet, in Berlin, this parade is often misunderstood as a self-representation of an identity that is imagined in one-dimensional terms, with little room for humour and irreverence. The Carnival of Cultures is an ambivalent event that serves two modes of projection simultaneously: it is a space for self-expression and a space for the projection of the Other. It is this ambivalence, with all its poles and contradictions, that the exhibition explores.
Thirteen artists from different generations and with varying experiences of the Carnival of Cultures were invited to present their artistic work both within and outside the context of the Carnival of Cultures. They were invited as individual artists, not because they represent larger groups. It would be impossible to represent the thousands of artists who have taken part in the Carnival. These 13 voices speak in entirely different artistic languages and formats: we witness a convergence of high culture and popular culture, the conceptual and the extravagant, the intimate and the spectacular. Together, these voices interrogate regimes of vision as well as the slow, continuous labour of existing and acting as a multidimensional diaspora.
Artists: Bimal Fabbri, Guillermo Gómez-Peña & Coco Fusco, Mohamad Halbouni, Ikuku Berlin, Daniela Incoronato, Melissa Kurt, Joaquin La Habana, Fred Plassmann & Erika Martínez, Bassirou Sarr, Su-Ran Sichling, Murah Soares, Edmundo Torres, Nancy Torres, Luisa Ungar. Exhibition foyer: Van Bo Le-Mentzel & Werkstatt für Alles. Curator: Juana Awad.
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: Wednesday, 13. May until Tuesday, 26. May 2026
WHERE?
Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2
10997 Berlin
