Taking the current deployment of a German brigade to Lithuania as a starting point, the symposium addresses contemporary militarisation from an artistic perspective. Focusing on the situation in Central and Eastern Europe, international artists and scholars explore the intersections of military, ecological and technological developments – as well as related artistic practices. An event in the context of “Widerstand der Ästhetik” (Resistance of Aesthetics). In English.

“Vocations – open space” will once again open its doors in 2025 on four evenings, providing a space for radically open and transdisciplinary experiments at the intersection of music, sound, and poetry. Vocations invites poets, musicians, and audiences alike to engage in creative exchange – whether on stage, over a drink between performances, or as a way to round off the evening. Readings and performances in original language with English translation.

Everything that exists triggers something that follows. / Triggering means setting something in motion, get things moving. / What do the arts trigger? Do artists have control over what their work triggers – / in individual cases and as a result, in individuals and in a social context? / We ask them specifically about what they want to trigger – / and initiate various artistic interventions. With Cornelia Jentzsch, Karin Sander, Simon Steen-Andersen, Johanna M. Keller, Anh-Linh Ngo and Manos Tsangaris. In German.

The theme of Anna Seghers’ work is the self-liberation of her literary characters. To what extent does this liberation have biographical features? An approach to the transformation from sheltered daughter to headstrong writer. Guided tour in the writer’s home and study as it was, when she lived there from 1955 until her death in 1983. In German.

The fascinating nature of Meckel's estate library is explored in three contributions: Gila Funke-Meckel talks about “Biographical notes in the weathered inventory”, Adela Sophia Sabban reconstructs “Christoph Meckel's network of living and dead poets” and Marit Heuß presents and discusses the “Dedications Sarah Kirsch – Christoph Meckel”. An event from the series “Schaufenster Archiv”, in cooperation with the Literaturforum im Brecht-Haus. In German.

A special programme with music, lyrical interludes and guided tours, readings and an archive exhibition presents Brecht, Weigel and their circle from a lesser-known angle: as letter writers who formed the centre of a world-wide network of colleagues and comrades. The letters of the many artists who found their last resting place in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery will be read aloud during the “Geisterstunde” (“witching hour”). In German.