Balkan Radikal Beauty Salon „Practicing Care“

Promoted routines of self-care, turning off social media, and retreating into private space might be at times restorative. But as a habit these approaches cultivate distances through prioritizing individual well-being over community-care. In times of multiple crises, we need to turn towards each other and strengthen our bonds more than ever. Attention in today’s fast-paced climate is an under-recognized form of care. How can we practice being attentive to each other? How can we find and cultivate connection in the form of mutual care, sharing space, and time? And how can we preserve practices of ecological care? 

We begin this journey by looking at the economic and ecological crises in the mining-town Majdanpek and how it collides with magical practices by dragon-hunters. Flotacija features a family whose destiny is entangled with both and does their best to ensure the survival of their traditions and their future generations. 

In the following day, we move to practices of physical care by sharing beauty rituals with each other. Set in an eco cyber-nail salon, Petja Ivanova invites us to understand intimacy as infrastructure. Guiding through her research in Bulgarian caves, rivers, and water mythologies, fingernails become navigators of ecological and ancestral memory. The workshops offers a space to paint each others nails, ligner around, chat, and exchange stories and memories.

Bujrum is an open conversational space exploring diaspora, memory, and spirituality as forms of care and resistance. Dalila Daut introduces participants to the shared practice of coffee-ground reading, creating moments of listening, storytelling, and collective exchange. Through personal narratives and shared experiences, the gathering opens a space for reflecting on belonging, loss, and memory.

As the program concludes, we turn towards a joint dinner and music.

 

complete program:

19.06.26 18:00 | Caring for Ecology and Magic Practices:  Filmscreening of Flotacija & QA with filmmaker Zoë Aiano

20.06.26 14:00 - 17:00 | Eco-Cybernails with Petja Ivanova

27.06.26 14:00 - 17:00 | Bujrum. Diaspora Spirituality as Care with Dalila Daut

27.06.26 18:00 | Music and Dinner

Vierte Welt

Next date:

• Date Friday, 19/June/2026 18:00 (2 more dates)
• Venue Vierte Welt
• Address Adalbertstraße 96, 10999 Berlin-Kreuzberg