open ateliers

Open ateliers are family-friendly workshops held every Sunday afternoon from 3–6 pm at rotating venues throughout the duration of the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

These drop-in sessions are free of charge and need no prior registration. These Open Ateliers invite visitors of all ages to engage playfully and intuitively with the exhibition’s themes, materials, and questions.

The first Open Atelier, led by artist Umut Evers, takes place over seven dates in the courtyard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Together with the visitors, a hanging installation—a kind of “wishing tree”—will be created using indigo (a deep blue pigment) and various fabric scraps. The colonial history of indigo will also be addressed: Once a symbol ofexploitation, dyeing here becomes a meditative and creative act ofcollective remembrance.

Another workshop is facilitated over three sessions by the Netzwerk gegen Feminizide Berlin (Network Against Feminicide Berlin) in the garden of the former courthouse on Lehrter Straße. Visitors are invited to take part in the participatory art action Sangre de mi Sangre [Blood of my Blood] by the feminist collective Colectiva Hilos. The project draws attention to feminicides and violent disappearances in Mexico. Through collective weaving, an expression of resistance and solidarity emerges—a space for exchange, shared remembrance, and the building of a defiant community.

The final three Open Studios held during the 13th Berlin Biennale mark a creative conclusion to the exhibition. Inspired by the concept and title of the show, “passing the fugitive on”, artist Ercan Arslan will collaborate with participants over two Sundays to create postcard collages. The starting point for these works are drawings left behind by visitors during the "hang-out moments." These motifs can be combined with magazine clippings, photographs, personal drawings, and images to form new compositions on blank postcards.

In this context, the postcard serves as a connecting element: it preserves memories and associations, transforms them into artistic objects, and sets them in motion once more. As both individual and collective traces, these postcards are passed on or mailed—released into the world as fleeting testaments to creative exchange and shared imagination.

As part of the final Open Studio, another indigo workshop will take place with artist Umut Evers. The dyed fabric pieces created during previous Open Studio Sundays, which have been brought together to form a sculpture in the mediation space, may be taken home by visitors as mementos of the 13th Berlin Biennale.