Planetary Transitions 2025: Potsdam Artist Residency – Call for Applications

The Potsdam Memorandum of 2007 calls on science and society to tap into all sources of ingenuity and cooperation in an effort to tackle the great sustainability challenges of our time. The arts can provide unique insights beyond the scope of scientific analysis and policy development, challenging our views and opening new avenues to work together towards the common goal of a sustainable world, while fostering dialogue across cultures, epistemologies and territories.

The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, the City of Potsdam, and the Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (RIFS) are issuing a joint call for applications for international artists to explore artistic insights into sustainability during a fellowship in Potsdam, Germany. The programme seeks to foster exchange between the arts, academia, politics, and civil society and to facilitate collaboration around the world. We encourage the participation of artists with critical voices and perspectives that are absent in German and Western European discussions on sustainability and sustainable development.

We especially welcome applications from candidates whose interests dovetail with our research activities, in particular in the areas of: air quality, climate change, consumption, democracy, digitalisation, energy, just transition, mindsets, mobility, rights of nature, risks and hazards, and/or sustainability challenges affecting the Arctic, Europe (particularly Brandenburg/Berlin), Latin America (particularly the Amazon region), Southern (i.e. the Himalaya region) and Eastern Asia, or the Oceans.

The successful applicant will join the RIFS Fellow Programme, which has frequently hosted artists over the years, alongside scientists and practitioners from business and civil society. Fellowships span a period of three to six months, starting in the second half of 2025, with the RIFS providing the basic infrastructure as well as a monthly stipend and additional allowances for ancillary costs such as travel expenses, co-financed by the DAAD. In addition, we provide support on various legal requirements such as visa applications, cover travel to Potsdam and back, and provide an apartment for the first three months of the fellowship, allowing fellows ample time to find suitable housing in the Berlin-Brandenburg area, if needed.

This call for applications is open to artists active in any field – from the visual arts to filmmaking, the performing arts, literature, music, and beyond. While we value artistic experience, we recognize that exceptional talent and creativity can often transcend traditional benchmarks. We encourage individuals with a passion for their craft and a strong portfolio showcasing their skills to apply. We welcome joint applications by artistic collectives; however, our funds are limited. Please contact us directly if you wish to submit a joint application.

To apply, please provide us with the following documents and information:

Letter of motivation (max. 2 pages): Please explain your motivation to apply for this fellowship. In particular, please outline how your project would benefit from a collaboration with one of the RIFS research groups. Please indicate which RIFS research group would be your preferred cooperation partner.

CV (max. 2 pages): Please outline the key steps in your career.

Portfolio (max. 20 pages): Please provide us with your portfolio or links to websites hosting your work.

Proposal (max. 5 pages): Please outline your intended project during your fellowship, paying special attention to how it would relate to sustainability and be implemented at RIFS, in the Potsdam/Berlin area and/or the German art scene.

All documents must be submitted as separate PDF files in English by 15 January 2025 via our online application tool. Your complete application (all files) should not exceed 25MB.

Successful applicants will be selected by representatives from the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, the City of Potsdam, the RIFS and independent jury members from academia and the arts. We expect to reach our decision in February/March 2025.

As part of the fellowship, we expect that the successful applicant(s) present their work to the public. This does not necessarily mean completed art pieces, but more broadly their topics, approach and perspective on planetary transitions.

Please see the full call for applications text here.

Partnership with Artis

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program and Artis, New York and Tel Aviv, have established a collaboration to offer fully funded residencies to practitioners from Israel in the field of visual arts, performance, and curation. The artists and curators will be in residence for up to three months in art institutions such as, Bauhaus Archive Berlin, Neue Sächsische Galerie, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt, Forecast Berlin and universities such as Universität der Künste Berlin, Humboldt University and Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. Invitations have already been issued to the curator and architect Eran Eizenhamer, the artist and curator Hadas Kedar, the visual artist Nira Pereg, the curator Mayaan Sheleff and the performance collective Public Movement have already been invited. Further invitations will follow.

Artis is an independent, nonprofit, contemporary art organization dedicated to supporting contemporary artists from Israel and contributing to a global conversation about art and culture. Artis works with artists and curators who ask questions and explore complex narratives, striving to move beyond replicating national language, assumptions, or preconceived notions in a manner that is responsive, responsible, and in exchange with the international art community in thoughtful, new ways. Artis is committed to ensuring artist-centered opportunities for artists and curators from Israel regardless of religion, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identification.

The residencies are funded by the Federal Foreign Office as part of the DAAD Arts and Media programme.

Announcement Fellows 2025

The list of outstanding artists selected to receive Berlin residencies in 2025 is now set.
From about one thousand four hundred applications from 120 countries, four independent and international jurys awarded the following positions:

Visual Arts
Hoda Afshar, Iran
Essa Grayeb, Palestinian Territories
Hira Nabi, Pakistan
Alejandra Pombo Su, Spain
Sage Ni’Ja Whitson, USA

Film                             
Flora Dias, Brazil
Wanjiru Kinyanjui, Kenya
Yeo Siew Hua, Singapore

Literature                  
Julia Cimafiejeva, Belraus
Nastaran Makaremi, Iran
James Noël, Haiti
Norman Erikson Pasaribu, Indonesia
Claudia Rankine, USA
Geetanjali Shree, India

Music & Sound        
Dror Feiler, Sweden
Interspecifics, Mexico
Isuru Kumarasinghe, Sri Lanka
Okkyung Lee, South Korea

Press Release Fellows 2025

Website “Mapping the Archive” now online

Thanks to funding from Research and Competence Center Digitalization Berlin (digiS) and the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, parts of our audiovisual archive have been digitized. Mapping the Archive now makes selected works freely accessible online for the first time. A map of Berlin shows the places that the Fellows were particularly interested in during their stay in the 1970s to 1990s. Mapping the Archive explores the Fellows relationships and movements through Berlin, thus tracing a previously invisible chronicle of the city.

www.mappingthearchive.de

New release: Pisitakun Kuantalaeng Compilation MIDDLE SOUND #01

On November 27, 2023, the compilation MIDDLE SOUND #01 is published. Pisitakun Kuantalaeng (music & sound fellow 2023) invited sixteen international musical artists to reinterpret protest songs from their home countries. The online album will feature the resulting tracks along with background information on the original songs and artists involved. The release is part of Kuantalaeng’s larger project THE THREE SOUND OF REVOLUTION examining the connections and variances between global protest movements where music often plays a central role. A further iteration of the project will be presented at CTM Festival 2024 – SUSTAIN in collaboration with the Artists-in-Berlin Program.

With contributions by: Abadir (EG), Teya Logos (PH), Gabber Modus Operandi (ID), Pisitakun (TH), Wanton Witch (MY), Neo Geodesia (CB), WAQ WAQ KINGDOM (JP), Odete (PT), Ale Hop (PE), Carla Boregas (BR), Ruhail Qaisar (IN), fatalism (GR), Hui Ye (CN), PNIKY HTUT AUNG (MM), HURA (IR), Tanat Teeradakorn (TH)

Mastered by: Enyang Urbiks, Urbiks Music GmbH
website conception & realization: José Fernandes
supported by DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program

https://threesound.org/

New release: Mario Verandi, Lucent Shores

Lucent Shores features Mario Verandi‘s electroacoustic music compositions produced between 2002 and 2017. The album complement’s Verandi’s Orillas Distantes – Distant Shores, an album released in 2001 that contains his early electroacoustic music works (1995 – 2000). The two albums reveal the composer’s strong background in the tradition of acousmatic music whose roots go back to the musique concrete of the 1940s. Mario Verandi explores with intensity and imagination the use of recognizable sound sources in combination with electronic transformations of these same materials blurring the boundaries between real and abstract soundworlds.
The production was supported by the Artists-in-Berlin Program.

CD / 2023
Order here

OPEN CALL: OSCILLATIONS – Sonic Inquiries and Practices

Attuned to trans-hemispheric engagements in sound and knowledge production, the Akademie der Künste, the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, and Deutschlandfunk Kultur are pleased to announce the start of a joint project, OSCILLATIONS: Sonic Inquiries and Practices, and an open call for artist residency applications from sound artists, scholars and cultural practitioners based in southern Africa.

Under the sign of dialogue, exchange and cooperation, OSCILLATIONS aims to support artist residencies; sonic installations and exhibitions; listening and reading sessions; broadcast and podcast content; and workshops and archive experiments in Berlin, Cape Town and cyberspace.

This Open Call for Residencies is aimed at sound artists, scholars and cultural practitioners based in southern Africa. Directed at mid-career sound artists, the Berlin open call, partly supported by the DAAD Arts & Media Program, includes three residencies, each for a period of two months. In Cape Town, the call includes two two-month residencies for mid-career practitioners and two one-month residencies for entrants new to the field of sonic inquiry and practice. Residencies can be taken up in the June 2023 – March 2024 period.

Further information and Open Call for Residencies

Oscillations is a project by the Academy of the Arts, Berlin, Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town), and Deutschlandfunk Kultur / Klangkunst (Berlin)

Funded within the Fonds TURN2 der Kulturstiftung des Bundes. Funded by Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.

Supported by the DAAD Arts & Media Program, Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf, and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS)

Fellows of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program in 2023

The list of outstanding artists selected to receive Berlin residencies in 2023 is now set. From about five hundred applications from 88 countries were selected:

Visual Arts              

Esvin Alarcón Lam, Guatemala
Helena Uambembe, South Africa
Sam Vernon, USA
Jiyoung Yoon, South Korea

Film
Gustavo Vinagre, Brazil
Susana De Sousa Dias, Portugal
Radu Jude, Romania

Literature

Lana Bastašić, Bosnien

Amanda Lee Koe, Singapur

Nhã Thuyên, Vietnam

Rajesh Parameswaran, USA

Cristina Rivera Garza, Mexiko

Kinga Tóth, Ungarn

  

Music & Sound       

Ting-Jung Chen, Taiwan

Pisitakun Kuantalaeng, Thailand

Muqata’a, Palästinensische Gebiete

Sonja Mutić, Serbien/Kroatien

The artists were selected by the following expert jury panel:

Visual Arts: Nana Adusei-Poku, assistant professor in African Diasporic Art History, University of California Berkeley; Daniel Garza Usabiaga, curator and researcher, Mexico City, Nida Ghouse, visiting lecturer at Princeton University and co-artistic director of the Singapore Biennale 2022, New York / Berlin; Angela Harutyunyan, associate professor, American University, Beirut; Paula Nascimento, architect and curator, Luanda; Haegue Yang, artist and professor, Städelschule, Berlin / Seoul

Film: Enoka Ayemba, film curator and scholar, Berlin; Enrico Ippolito, journalist and author, Berlin; Birgit Kohler, co-director, Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V., Berlin; Maria Mohr, filmmaker, Berlin; Ines Johnson-Spain, filmmaker, Berlin

Literature: Yevgeniy Breyger, poet, translator and editor, Frankfurt a.M.; Olga Grjasnowa, writer, Berlin; David Hugendick, literary editor and journalist, ZEIT ONLINE, Berlin; Benjamin Loy, literary scholar, critic and translator, Vienna; Samir Sellami, literary scholar and critic, Berlin; Eva Tepest, writer and journalist, Berlin

Music & Sound: Ketan Bhatti, composer, musician & artistic director, Trickster Orchestra, Berlin; Ash Fure, composer & artistic co-director, The Industry, Boston / Los Angeles; Thorbjørn Tønder Hansen, executive & artistic director, Ultima, Oslo; Talía Vega León, cultural Manager, director and curator of Radical Sounds Latin America, Berlin; meLê yamomo, researcher, theatre maker and composer, Amsterdam / Berlin; Du Yun, composer and performer, New York City

The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program awards internationally highly regarded fellowships. Since 1963, over 1300 outstanding international visual artists, authors, filmmakers, composers, and sound artists have been invited to live and work in Berlin. As part of its long-term support of artists, works by current and former guests are presented at the daadgalerie in Kreuzberg as well as at partner institutions in Berlin, around Germany and also abroad.

For further information, please contact Silvia Fehrmann, Director Artists-in-Berlin Program (presse.bkp@daad.de)

Application process for 2024 scholarships opened

The application process for the 2024 fellowships of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm opened today. The application deadline is December 1, 2022.

The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program is one of Europe’s most prestigious grants. Each year, around. twenty outstanding practitioners from diverse cultural backgrounds are invited to Berlin to focus on their work and actively engage with the city’s vibrant cultural scene. To be eligible for this fellowship, artists must have developed their own distinguished artistic voice and body of work. The grant is not awarded to students, however, there is no age limitation upwards.

Applications for literature, music & sound (12 months residency) and film grants (6 months residency) can be submitted from October 17 until December 1, 2022. In the visual arts section, an appointment committee proposes invitations to internationally renowned artists; i.e. applications in the visual arts section are not possible.

If you would like to apply, please use only the current information and forms at Berliner Künstlerprogramm Application.

In memory of Peter Nestler

Peter Nestler, the first director of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program from 1965 to 1970, died in Berlin several days ago at the age of ninety-three. It was largely thanks to his initiative that the artists-in-residence program, launched by the Ford Foundation in West Berlin in 1963, continued to evolve. His involvement in culture and politics and his personal powers of persuasion are what turned the residency program into the Artists-in-Berlin Program. Tirelessly committed to “cultural and intellectual bridge-building,” his work was essential to the evolution of West Berlin and German cultural scenes. He was always emphatic that “independent, personal engagement outside of official political bodies and agreements help prepare the climate and ground for interstate relations.” Peter Nestler laid an important foundation for the Artists-in-Berlin Program and thus for local and international cultural work. The DAAD and the Artists-in-Berlin Program are deeply indebted to him for his contributions.

Quote: Peter Nestler, draft article for “Diplomatischer Kurier”, ca. 1970. Source: DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program Archive