Conference
In the face of the current ecological predicament, substantial ›matters‹ are progressively getting ›out of hand‹, and require critical attention to their environmental, technological, and socio-material ambiguities. The annual conference of »Matters of Activity« attends to such complexities by intertwining active matters on multiple scales with questions of modelling, making and playing on unsteady grounds. By convening a variety of interdisciplinary positions, we seek to inspire collaborative means to negotiate the legacies and futures of material-driven research.
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Energy Things, Iva Rešetar, Project »Architectural Yarns«. Detail from the exhibition »Material Legacies« in Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, 2022-23. Photo: Michelle Mantel, 2023
Exhibition, Roundtable and Workshop
This site-specific design intervention at Museum der Dinge critically engages with the environmental legacies of modernism. In dialog with existing environmental systems and the »energy things« from the museum’s collections, it opens up a discussion on human-made heat, drawing attention to the past, present, and future practices of thermal conditioning.
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Long-term monitoring plot of a heath population rendered as point cloud. Remote sensing data and processing: Carsten Neumann and Nicole Köllner, Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam; Visualization: Jona Möller, 2025
Exhibition and Roundtable
The exhibition at ZK/U Berlin explores the complex history and contested afterlife of former military training sites in Brandenburg, Germany. »Blazing Heath/Heideglühen« examines how the toxic legacies of military occupation are made (in)visible and repurposed within scientific knowledge production. By integrating data-driven, visual, and sonic monitoring, a multi-channel video installation encourages you to engage with these uncanny landscapes.
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Swamp Things, Charlett Wenig, 2024. Photo: Janne Ebel, 2024
Exhibition and Workshops
»Swamp Things!« invites peatland ecologies to the BHROX pavilion – haunting echoes of Berlin’s watery past as fenland, shaped by glacial meltwaters. The exhibition explores the lively potential of peatland plants through basketry, open-source coiling machines, and multimodal workshops.
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Beetle Galleries in Spruce Wood. Photo: Pelin Asa, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Matters of Activity, 2024
Exhibition, Symposium, Roundtable and Tours
Climate change and monocultures have left forests vulnerable to insects and fungi. Beetle-infested wood is deemed less valuable from a traditional human-centric perspective. The group show »Symbiotic Wood« at Kunstgewerbemuseum focuses on this ›more-than-human‹ material that is co-owned with other species. It features contributions by artists, designers, architects, and cultural historians.
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Entangled – Architectural Yarns and Structural Textiles. Photo: Michelle Mantel, adapted with drawing: Natalija Miodragović, 2025
Workshop
»Entangled« brings together experts from materials research, architecture, textiles, and the humanities to discuss textile material practices in architecture. The workshop at Deutsches Architektur Zentrum invites the public to engage in conversations about the future of our built, grown, and woven environments. It builds on a network of academic and industry partners with expertise in textile technology and material flows.
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Corrosion Cast of Liver Vessels, Dietrich Polenz, 2023. Image: Igor Sauer, 2025
Exhibition, Panels and Tours
Vessels are indispensable – for plants, animals, humans, and even our cities. This special exhibition at Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité offers exciting insights into these often-hidden structures. It shows how various vascular systems function and how they are visualized, used, and reproduced.
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Samples of woven cotton cloth dyed with mud (vouwo), Adama Séré - Marka-Dafing master dyer, 2020. Photo: Salif Sawadogo 2020
Exhibition and Talks
»Fermenting Textiles« explores the fermentation of textiles in mud and plant material. The exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin connects anthropology, microbiology, and art through the engagement of artisans, anthropologists, scientists, and artists and mirrors the multi-species collaborations that are integral to the mud dyeing process.
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Ailanthus altissima, Musée national d’histoire naturelle Luxembourg, title: Specimen № 15467, MNHNL 2000, license: CC BY 4.0, color and framing of this image were modified
Exhibition, Workshops, Audio Walk and Movie Night
Focusing on the agency of plant and tree collectives and their ability to shape entire ecologies, »Vegetal Companions« aims to critically reposition conventional human-centered concepts that highlight control and mastery over nature. In a close dialog with the botanical garden of Späth-Arboretum, »Vegetal Companions« explores different forms of knowledge creation, be it soil as archive, art as research, or philosophy as gardening.
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Latent Accumulations: Walking Along Paraffin Pollution at Nida Coastline. Film still: Anna Luise Schubert 2025
Exhibition, Roundtable and Workshop
Paraffin pollution is a recurring concern in coastal environments, yet one that is inherently difficult to detect and classify. The exhibition »Latent Accumulations« at Tieranatomisches Theater Berlin traces the elusive activity of this material. It gives insights into site-specific research processes that connect material investigations with local experiences and memories of shifting landscapes.
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»Syntopolis« reef prototype in STARESO, Rasa Weber & Atelier Marie Drouet. Photo: Till Timmermann, 2024
Exhibition and Interactive Program
Design researcher and diver Rasa Weber takes on the challenge of creating an artificial reef in the river Spree, a project she calls »Syntopolis«. Streamed into the re:future lab, the reef will transform the institute’s exhibition space into an immersive aquatic habitat for encounters, experiences, and reflections on shared ecological futures. The registration for the interactive program such as a boat cruise is now open!
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Film Still taken from a film by Oula A. Valkeapää. Still: Oula A. Valkeapää, 2021
Exhibition, Talk and Tours
»Johtingeaidnu – The Path Within« is the first program highlight of the ＿matter Festival 2025. The exhibition at Schering Stiftung brings together two worlds: reindeer nomadism in the Arctic Sápmi region and the bioscience of epigenetics. Drawing on living relations within contemporary reindeer worlds and bioscientific research, the exhibition at materializes a world in which epigenetic memories are not only shared between humans but carried within ancestral migratory paths, called ›Johtingeaidnu‹. The exhibition opens on April 10th, 2025, 6:00 pm, followed by a conversation between artist Emilia Tikka and Miriam Liedvogel (Director Institute of Avian Research, Wilhelmshaven) on April 11th.
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