Matter shapes our existence, although we tend to forget about its activity in everyday life.
Imagine a new culture of the material – a society in which technologies, buildings and infrastructures work with the inherent activity of materials – not against it. Where materials are not passivated at the expense of adaptability, and where the control of material flows goes beyond short-sighted profit.
The _matter Festival 2025 shines a new light on material agencies. From April 10, 2025, it presents exhibitions, workshops and debates at twelve venues across Berlin, radically changing our understanding of materials as passive, ahistorical substances. The festival's contributions demonstrate that materials are a vibrant part of our living world. They connect human and non-human agents, times and places. They are dynamic and have a memory of their own. Realizing material agencies will create a sustainable alternative to prevailing extractivist and energy-consuming technologies, and sparks a fresh perspective on the challenges posed by human-induced climate crisis.
Discover the program here!
Festival Program: April–October 2025

Film Still taken from a film by Oula A. Valkeapää. Still: Oula A. Valkeapää, 2021

»Syntopolis« reef prototype in STARESO, Rasa Weber & Atelier Marie Drouet. Photo: Till Timmermann, 2024

Latent Accumulations: Walking Along Paraffin Pollution at Nida Coastline. Film still: Anna Luise Schubert 2025

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

Samples of woven cotton cloth dyed with mud (vouwo), Adama Séré - Marka-Dafing master dyer, 2020. Photo: Salif Sawadogo 2020

Corrosion Cast of Liver Vessels, Dietrich Polenz, 2023. Image: Igor Sauer, 2025

Entangled – Architectural Yarns and Structural Textiles. Photo: Michelle Mantel, adapted with drawing: Natalija Miodragović, 2025

Beetle Galleries in Spruce Wood. Photo: Pelin Asa, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Matters of Activity, 2024

Swamp Things, Charlett Wenig, 2024. Photo: Janne Ebel, 2024

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

Energy Things, Iva Rešetar, Project »Architectural Yarns«. Detail from the exhibition »Material Legacies« in Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, 2022-23. Photo: Michelle Mantel, 2023
Team
Curators: Sophia Gräfe, Claudia Mareis and Peter Fratzl
Project Management: Sophia Gräfe
Project Assistant: Lina Lau
Production: Julia Blumenthal
Assistant Production: Mareen Baumeister, Nick Geipel and Nicholas Plunkett
Communication and Press Antje Nestler and Carolin Ott
Assistant Communication and Press: Dominic Eger Domingos, Maxim Landau and Richard Ley
Proofreading: Elisabeth Obermeier
Design: NODE Berlin Oslo
Photography: Michael Pfisterer
Finances, Inventory & Object Handling: Sandra Bauer
Assistant Finances, Inventory & Object Handling: Liliia Lanevska
IT & AV Management: Alexander Struck, Martin Wagner and Sebastian Hermann