with
Field Narratives (hn. lyonga & Lene Markusen)
Sarnt Utamachote
Theresa Weber
Zhou Yichen
& Lauryn Youden
Graphic: Nora Keilig
Exhibition
29/5/2025 – 10/8/2025
Curated by
Maxime Lübke
& Annika Reketat
The exhibition »This, too, is a way of keeping each other close« is the second part of the annual programme HANDLE (with) CARE.
Opening
28/5/2025, from 7 PM
Opening
8 PM Performance GLITCH CHOIR
Free entry
Bärenzwinger Berlin warmly invites you to the opening of the group exhibition “This, too, is a way of keeping each other close” on May 28, 2025 from 7 PM. As the second exhibition in this year’s program HANDLE [with] CARE, it centers lives and losses that are often excluded from public rituals of mourning and remembrance.
The artistic positions by hn. lyonga & Lene Markusen (together with Sascia Bailer & Andreas Doepke as the collective Field Narratives), Sarnt Utamachote, Theresa Weber, Zhou Yichen, and Lauryn Youden approach grief not as mere pain, but as a deeply social, political, and relational practice –
as a way to take responsibility, to practice care, and to foster connections, especially where public recognition and remembrance has long been denied. Through queer, anticolonial, and community-based gestures, they open spaces for empathy, closeness, and solidarity.
The exhibition space itself is a site of commemoration: 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of the death of Schnute, the last bear to be kept in the Bärenzwinger.
The exhibition is accompanied by a public program focused on poetic, performative, and educational formats.
Performance: GLITCH CHOIR
28/5/2025, 8 PM
Free entry
No registration required
GLITCH CHOIR transfers the phenomenon of the glitch – the unexpected result of a digital malfunction – into the analog space, exploring how disruptions can open new forms of expression. At the heart of the piece is the recomposition of a song of lament, deconstructed and transformed through glitching. Historically, public mourning has been a practice performed predominantly by women, often professional lamenters, who express grief on behalf of others. This tradition reveals the paradox of women being both permitted and burdened to translate private emotions into public mourning.
In this performance, two female performers create a collective body of mourning, inviting the audience into a resonant, multivocal space. The inherent vocal distortions of lamentation become a medium for transforming individual grief into a collective glitch.
Choreography & concept: Deva Schubert
Performance: Chihiro Araki, Deva Schubert & guests
Chihiro Araki (she/her) is a dance, voice and performance artist based in Berlin. After training at The Tokyo Ballet School and earning BA from Rambert School in London, she has danced with Carte Blanche / The Norwegian National Company of Contemporary Dance and Johannes Wieland Company, as well as for Alban Richard, Jenny Beyer, Helena Waldmann, Meg Stuart, Deva Schubert, Lina Gómez, Sergiu Matis, Jule Flierl and musical artist Pan Daijing.
Deva Schubert is a choreographer and dancer based in Berlin. Her work explores the voice in relation to dance, installation, and digital media. She studied in Salzburg, Kassel, Copenhagen, and at HZT Berlin. Her artistic practice addresses intimacy, collectivity, and transdisciplinary synergies, and has been presented at institutions such as Haus der Kunst Munich, Kunsthalle Zurich, and the Transart Festival Bolzano. In 2024, she received the ImPulsTanz – Young Choreographers’ Award for Glitch Choir.
Bärenzwinger at the Fête de la Musique
21/6/2025,
16-21:30 PM
Admission free
No registration required
On 21 June, the Bärenzwinger will become a stage: for the first time, we will be part of the Fête de la Musique and invite you to the outdoor area in Köllnischer Park. Live acts from retro-soul to synth-punk will provide musical variety where real bears used to roam – open air and with free admission. Come along and celebrate the longest day of the year with us!
Line-up:
4:00 pm: Jelena Brand
5:00 pm: Krisenmanagement
6:15 pm: Jochen
7:30 pm: Tango Bravo
8:45 pm: ÖPNV
Ways of Staying With – Theme day with workshop, discussion & performance
19/7/2025
3 to 5 PM: Workshop with Joachim Perez
5:30 PM: Panel discussion
7 PM: Performance with Jeremy Wade
Admission free
No registration required
On Saturday, 19 July 2025, from 3 PM Bärenzwinger Berlin invites you to a theme day entitled “Ways of Staying With” as part of the exhibition “This, too, is a way of keeping each other close”. The exhibition brings together queer, anti-colonial and embodied perspectives on grief, memory and spirituality. The artistic positions explore how grief can become a place of relationship, resistance, and continuity.
“Ways of Staying With” is dedicated to the question of what it means to stay with one another – across loss, distance and time. The day brings together artistic, activist and collective practices that resist forgetting and instead linger with the vulnerable, the unresolved and the fragile.
Collective Threads: Textile Workshop with Joachim Perez
The event kicks off from 3 to 5 PM with the bilingual, open workshop Collective Threads with artist Joachim Perez. Participants will work together with discarded textiles – as an exercise in memory, repair and connectedness. Perez’s practice combines hand-sewn textile architectures with diasporic narratives and intergenerational exchange.
This is a drop-in format: interested parties can come and go as they please. The workshop is open to all age groups. No prior knowledge is required.
Panel Discussion: Queering Grief & Loss
At 5:30 PM, a panel discussion follows with Sarnt Utamachote (researcher, filmmaker, curator), Francis Seeck (professor at TH Nürnberg, author, and anti-discrimination trainer), and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi (crazinisT artisT) (performance and installation artist, LGBTQIA+ activist from Ghana).
Queer grief often speaks to the loss of a life imagined differently – of futures that have been dismantled or denied. Drawing on José Esteban Muñoz’s theory, it explores mourning as a longing for what has not yet been possible. LGBTQIAs+ are frequently rendered invisible in death and mourning – particularly queers who face legal and social obstacles that criminalize their identities or deny them the right to grieve.
What infrastructures or alternative practices of grieving exist for queers? How can we mourn and die outside of heteronormative, bureaucratized funeral cultures? Who is considered “worthy” of burial? And who tends to the graves if ties to one’s family of origin are broken?
Prof. Dr. Francis Seeck, Sarnt Utamachote, and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi will discuss current developments around queer cemeteries in Berlin, the deaths of young queers due to substance abuse in nightlife scenes, and rituals of care within queer mourning groups – all while considering intersections of class, gender, and race.
The talk will be held in English and moderated by Maxime Lübke.
Performance with Jeremy Wade
The event will conclude at 7 PM with a collective performance by Jeremy Wade, consisting of three participatory rituals. The focus is on community, systemic care and support in times of loss, grief and crisis. The performance creates a space for shared pause, physical sensation and ritual gesture.
Where Words Stay When Home Fades: Reading with Atefe Asadi & Sarah Rauchfuß in Farsi and German
24/7/2025
5:30 PM: Curator’s tour
with Maxime Lübke & Annika Reketat
7:00 PM: Reading
Free entry
No registration required
When home disappears, language is often the last thing that remains — and at the same time the first to risk breaking apart in exile. Bärenzwinger Berlin invites you to a reading with Iranian author Atefe Asadi and translator Sarah Rauchfuß on July 24 at 7 PM. The reading offers a glimpse into literary fragments from a life in between: caught between inner rebellion and outer silence, between remembering in one’s mother tongue and expressing oneself in a foreign language.
Asadi’s texts emerge from experiences of repression, migration, and alienation. They do not simply tell “of Iran,” but reveal a daily reality torn apart by political violence. Written in Farsi, these stories carry voices silenced in places of control. In the reading, they meet a new language – Rauchfuß’s German translation – which is not a mere reflection but a tentative chamber of resonance.
The evening is part of the exhibition This, too, is a way of keeping each other close, which explores queer, feminist, and anti-colonial perspectives on memory, care, and the narration of loss. It focuses on invisible stories, fragmented narratives, and forms of mourning that create closeness through shared vulnerability.
Atefe Asadi is an Iranian writer, poet, editor, and translator known for her role in Iran’s underground literary scene. Her three collections of short stories have been banned by the Iranian Ministry of Culture, and her literary activities and participation in protest movements have led to her persecution and arrest. She subsequently became a writer-in-residence with ICORN (International Cities of Refugees Network), received the Hannah Arendt Fellowship, and settled in Germany. There, she campaigns for literature in exile and for freedom in Iran through school visits, interviews, cultural programs, and residencies such as the Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen and the Kultur Ensemble Palerme. Her works, which explore women’s rights, migration, discrimination, and freedom, have been translated into English, German, and Italian. Her first collection of short stories is currently being translated into German.
Sarah Rauchfuß (born 1990 in Ottersberg near Bremen) has been translating contemporary Persian literature from Afghanistan and Iran since 2019. She works as a freelance translator for the Weiter Schreiben project, the DAAD and various literary institutions and festivals in German-speaking countries. Her second novel translation, Bahram Moradi’s “Das Gewicht der anderen” (Wallstein Verlag), will be published in August 2025.
“Kaffee, Kuchen & Schnute”: Open neighborhood gathering
3/8/2025, 2-4 PM
Free entry
No registration required
Schnute, the last bear to have lived in Berlin‘s Bärenzwinger, died 10 years ago, in October 2015. Her death marked the end of an era that still moves many Berliners today. To commemorate her death, we cordially invite you to „Kaffee, Kuchen & Schnute“, a neighbourhood gathering in memory of Schnute.
With coffee, cake and conversations we want to share memories of Schnute and the Bärenzwinger, a place that has transformed from an animal enclosure to a contemporary art gallery.
Share your stories, anecdotes, and photos of Schnute or the Bärenzwinger with us!
Write us at: info@bärenzwinger.berlin. Selected submissions will be added to a memorial album, which will be displayed in the Bärenzwinger.
Alongside the neighbourhood gathering we are offering a workshop: in memory of Schnute, we will write memories, thoughts and wishes on seed paper, which will then be buried in the Garden of the Bärenzwinger. From words, flowers will grow.
Once per exhibition, with the format “Kaffee, Kuchen & …” the Bärenzwinger opens its doors for an informal neighbourhood gathering. We look forward to old friends, new faces and many shared memories.
Field Narratives (hn. lyonga & Lene Markusen)
hn. lyonga is a Black, Queer, interdisciplinary writer, poet, and currently a Human Maschine Fellow at E-Werk Lückenwalde and Akademie Der Künste, Berlin.
His work focuses on writing, storytelling, and community making. It looks at migrational inquiries pertinent to historically colonized and marginalized communities. Among other things, he is a neighbor, a (livelong) student, a member of the curatorial board of BARAZANI.berlin – Forum Kolonialismus und Widerstand, working on ideas of rural biographies, transgenerational and cross-continental storytelling. His work qualifies as ‘Wake Work’: a labour within the space of paradoxes surrounding Black citizenship; it is also the work of ‘continuous inhabiting and rupturing of episteme.’ (Christina Sharpe, In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, 2016).”
hardeson lolita is a certified Dementia caregiver, mother, and grandmother. In another life, hardeson lolita was an Elementary school educator, business owner, and contractor for CDC. She is born and raised in the southwest regions of Cameroon and is currently based in Duisburg.
Markus Posse is a performance artist and researcher. After graduating from Performance Studies, he worked as a dramaturg and artistic collaborator at spaces such as Deutsches SchauSpielHaus Hamburg, Theater Dortmund, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, and so forth. In addition, he is currently finishing his training to become a Drama Therapist.
Lene Markusen is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her work weighs in on historical discontinuities and spatial disparities, activating the catalytic and micro-utopian moments of performance and storytelling. An essential element in her work is the inclusion of drawing; exploring the disposition of this media in space and time, she negotiates more-than-human relations and the potential of improvisation and processes. She received the Villa Romana Prize in 2021. Her films and video installations have been screened and exhibited internationally, most recently at Gropius Bau, Berlin, Arthur Boskamp-Stiftung, Hohenlockstedt and Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken among others.
Field Narratives is an artistic research platform for rural biographies, transgenerational and cross-continental storytelling. It consists of Sascia Bailer, Andreas Doepke, hn. lyonga and Lene Markusen.
Sarnt Utamachote
Sarnt Utamachote is a Southeast Asian nonbinary filmmaker and curator in Berlin. Their work explores the intersection between activism and contemporary art through intense archival research and community-based collaborations in the form of exhibition or film.
They have curated exhibitions or programs for institutions such as HKW, Schwules Museum, nGbK, Sinema Transtopia, shaping conversations on migration, queerness, and transnationalism.
Additionally, they work as a film programmer for XPOSED Queer Film Festival Berlin and Short Film Festival Hamburg.
Theresa Weber
Theresa Weber was born in Düsseldorf in 1996 and lives and works in Berlin. Weber studied painting with Katharina Grosse and Ellen Gallagher at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, graduating as a master student in 2021.
She was then awarded a two-year postgraduate degree at the Royal College of Art in London. She has had solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Bochum, Neun Kelche, Berlin (2024), Somerset House, London (2023), Dortmunder Kunstverein and Moltkerei Werkstatt e.V., Cologne (2021).
Theresa Weber’s works can be found in the collections of the Bundeskunstsammlung, the Kunstmuseum Bochum, the Morgan Stanley Collection, the London School of Economics (LSE) Collection, the Mercedes Benz Collection, the Philara Collection, the By-Form Design Studio Collection and many more.
Zhou Yichen
Zhou Yichen was born in Wuhan, China, in 1993. He is a new media artist whose practice centers on video games.
He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts in 2017, followed by a first master’s degree from the same institution in 2020.
In 2021, he completed a second master’s degree at Pratt Institute. Zhou currently lives and works in Wuhan, China.
Lauryn Youden
Lauryn Youden is a sculptor, poet, performance, and installation artist based in Berlin, Germany. Her practice derives from her research in and navigation through the medical industrial complex / colonial medicine, ‘alternative’ healing practices and traditional medicine for the treatment of her chronic illnesses and disabilities.
By publicly presenting her personal experiences and re-evaluations of history, she illuminates and advocates for repressed, marginalized, and forgotten forms of care and Crip knowledge.
She has performed and exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Museion Bolzano, Frye Art Museum (Seattle), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), 11th Berlin Biennale, Manifesta 12 (Palermo), and Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), among others.
Recent exhibitions include Kunsthalle Zurich, Migros Museum (Zurich), Pogo Bar – KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), and Rochester Art Center (USA). They are currently a participant in BPA// Berlin program for artists.