[spectre] Fwd: Kyiv Biennial – A Bird That Cannot Land (11.06.–13.09.26, KW, Berlin)

Fri May 22 12:57:17 CEST 2026

-------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht --------
Betreff: 	Kyiv Biennial – A Bird That Cannot Land
Datum: 	Tue, 19 May 2026 17:00:26 +0200
Von: 	KW Institute for Contemporary Art <newsletter at kw-berlin.de>

11.06.–13.09.26 at KW Institute for Contemporary Art
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Kyiv Biennial at KW

On Wed, 10.06.26 from 19:00, KW will open a chapter of the Kyiv 
Biennial, an expansive exhibition, live and discursive program that 
takes place across all floors of the building and throughout the summer 
months.

This chapter is curated by KW's curatorial team and organised in close 
collaboration with the Visual Culture Research Center, the founders of 
the Kyiv Biennial.

We look forward to welcoming you to the opening!

11.06.–13.09.26
Kyiv Biennial
A Bird That Cannot Land

Lesia Vasylchenko, Night Without Shadows and Light Without Rippling of 
Waves, 2025. Courtesy the artist © the artist.

The sense by which we take our bearings in the
real world […] is being destroyed.
– Hannah Arendt, Truth and Politics

The Kyiv Biennial is a nomadic, international project that interweaves 
artistic, political, and social issues. A Bird That Cannot Land, its 
chapter at KW, takes shape as an extensive live and discursive program 
and a large-scale exhibition spanning the entire building, contributing 
to the biennial’s reflections through contemporary art, sound, and exchange.

Situated in shifting political realities, A Bird That Cannot Land 
centers on the notion of a “Middle-East-Europe” and its histories of 
dispute, coloniality, and imperialism. Recurring conflicts reopen the 
wounds of those preceding them and challenge our sense of shared 
experience, language, and imagination. By linking post-Soviet Eastern 
Europe with Central and Southwest Asia, and the Mediterranean, the 
exhibition and its live and discursive events turn to questions on how 
we make meaning and experience belonging in times marked by war, 
uncertainty, and estrangement. Moving through realities where the 
continuity of meaning is broken, the biennial understands exile in and 
from the world as a central condition of contemporary life.

Amid this landscape, A Bird That Cannot Land aims to open spaces for 
listening to interconnected pasts and presents, and for rethinking how 
geographies, histories, and realities are told and perceived. The 
biennial features over 40 intergenerational and international voices 
from Berlin and beyond. The works featured are shaped by lived 
experiences echoing rupture, migrant memories, their affective 
architectures, and the historical traces that persist both in bodies and 
in the spaces we inhabit.

The biennial’s live program foregrounds embodied, collective, and 
process-based practices that engage Berlin’s diasporic communities. 
Across performances, concerts, and listening sessions, sound is used to 
explore political and geographic relationships while polyphonic voices 
act as carriers of history, affect, and resilience. The discursive 
program further invites academic debates on matters of migration, 
exclusion, and co-existence, as well as extractivism and petrocapitalism.

Participants:Abdullah Miniawy, Adam Hanieh, Alona Karavai, Anna 
Ehrenstein and Yara Mekawei, Anna Zvyagintseva, Anton Kats and the 
Grounded Outer Space People, Assaf Gruber, Aykan Safoğlu, Bulgarian 
Voices Berlin, Dana Kavelina, Eda Aslan, Farahnaz Sharifi, Fehras 
Publishing Practices, Flaka Haliti, Geta Brătescu, Gulnur Mukazhanova, 
Heinali and Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko, Hito Steyerl, Hiwa K, Ihor 
Tsymbrovsky, Ivan Krastev, Joyce Joumaa, Julia Cimafiejeva, Katarina 
Gryvul, Lesia Vasylchenko, Lida Abdul, Lucia Kagramanyan, Madina 
Tlostanova, Majd Abdel Hamid, Mona Hatoum, Nazanin Noori, Neda Saeedi, 
Nikima Jagudajev, Nour Sokhon, Oleksiy Radynski, Philipp Goll, Samia 
Halaby, Saodat Ismailova, Sattar Stas Shärifullá and Ziliä Qansurá, 
Seyyare – Anatolian Women’s Choir, Stefaniia Bodnia and Jack Dove, Tjan 
Zaotschnaja, Tolia Astakhishvili, Ulrike Herrmann, Wafaa Saied

In 2025, the Kyiv Biennial took place across Europe through a series of 
exhibitions and events, including at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, 
M HKA in Antwerp, the Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture, the 
Dovzhenko Centre in Kyiv, and Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz. A Bird That 
Cannot Land expands on the themes from the biennial’s various 2025 
iterations.

 	Discover the Live Program

 	Read more <https://newslettertogo.com/rimnoamr-bmftxbnb-cb4cucs2-ezg>

 	Discover the Discursive Program

 	Read more <https://newslettertogo.com/rimnoamr-bmftxbnb-h9xqvgo7-b11>

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

Expanded 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 Kunstmuseum, Linz
Serge Klymko, Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC), Kyiv
Magda Lipska, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

In collaboration with

Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural 
Foundation). Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural 
Foundation) is funded by the Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur 
und Medien (German Federal Commissioner for Culture and the Media).

The discursive program is funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische 
Bildung (German Federal Agency for Civic Education)

Additional support by the DAAD’s Berlin Artists’ Programme, funded by 
the Federal Foreign Office (AA)

Mediapartner

KW Institute for Contemporary Art is institutionally supported by the 
Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.

Support the program of KW and Berlin Biennale and become a member of the 
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 	KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 	

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Wed – Mon, 11:00–19:00
Tue closed

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