transmediale 2021-22

The transmediale is one of the most important festivals of art and digital culture in the world. It is also part of a select group of outstanding German cultural institutions which receives special funding from the Federal Cultural Foundation. For more than 30 years, the transmediale has brought international artists, researchers, activists and thinkers together to develop new perspectives on our technological age.

transmediale 2021-22 investigates strategies of refusal

The coronavirus pandemic has only further intensified the inequalities that exist in art and society and revealed the necessity of pursuing a more sustainable approach to cultural work. In response to these pressing challenges, the transmediale has been expanded into a one-year festival format. The 2021-22 festival edition is the first to be headed by the new artistic director Nora O Murchú and will provide a platform which not only reacts to the consequences of the pandemic, but also supports artists by decelerating the artistic process and sustainably engaging with their works.

Entitled “for refusal”, the festival will present strategies of refusal as a possible course of political action and explore how these could be anchored in everyday life. The festival will also investigate the potential of forming new socio-political realities and artistically examine alternative models to predominant social and economic structures.

For the first time since 2001, the transmediale will not be staged at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, but will take place online and at selected sites in Berlin as a multipart event programme. In addition to international residencies, workshops and commissioned works, the 34th edition will feature an entire year of exhibitions, film screenings and a discussion programme that investigates the material, technological and cultural aspects of refusal from a critical-reflexive and interdisciplinary perspective.

To kick off the festival, transmediale launches the digital platform "Almanac for Refusal" on 28 January 2021 - an online collection that will be continuously expanded over the duration of the festival. The two-part exhibition "Rendering Refusal" at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien and Betonhalle in the Silent Green Kulturquartier will open as soon as COVID-19 regulations allow. Until then, "Proxy Visits" will offer digital access to the exhibition. From April on, the transmediale plans to present a monthly changing film programme and discussions at its new project space "transmediale studio". The first part of the year-long programme focusses on artistic works that challenge control systems and rethink algorithmic logic.

The Federal Cultural Foundation has financed the transmediale as a “cultural institution of excellence” since 2004.