On Seeing and Being Seen: 30 Years of the Carnival of Cultures

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.

The exhibition takes as its starting point a central paradox: since its inception in 1996, the Carnival of Cultures has been a space of liberation, where the street transforms into the city’s largest 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 exoticizing desire: a festival in which “cultures”—or worse yet, nations—present themselves, staging an idea of authenticity that is nothing more than a reflection of what is considered foreign and desirable.

Carnival is meant to be loud and absurd: People take to the streets in costume and community to overturn the order, laugh at power, and make exaggeration a principle. And yet, this parade in Berlin is often misunderstood as a self-representation of an identity imagined in one dimension, with little room for humor and irreverence. The Carnival of Cultures is an ambivalent event that serves two logics of projection simultaneously: It is a space for self-expression and a space for the projection of the Other. This ambivalence, with all its poles and contradictions, is what 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 participated in the Carnival. These 13 artists 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 work of existing and acting as a multidimensional diaspora.

Artistic positions: 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.

Runtime: Wed, 13/05/2026 to Tue, 26/05/2026

Takes place here:

• Studio 1 im Kunstquartier Bethanien