From June 6 to 8, 2025, the interdisciplinary festival "Once We Were Trees, Now We Are Birds" will take place at Kunsthaus ACUD in Berlin. Organized by the Goethe-Institut in Exile together with the Martin Roth Initiative, the festival presents artistic perspectives on migration, belonging and transformation. It complements the exhibition of the same name, which can be visited at the ifa Gallery Berlin until June 8, 2025.

The festival focuses on the work of former scholarship holders of the Martin Roth Initiative, one of the world's largest protection programmes for endangered artists, organized by the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the Goethe-Institut. Participants include artists from Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, India, Iran, Montenegro, Myanmar, Russia, Sudan, South Africa, Turkey and Ukraine. Together, they open up a polyphonic view of loss and transformation - of what remains when home disappears and what emerges when something has to begin anew.

The title image of the birds, which were once deeply rooted like trees and are now forced to search for new directions, reflects the central motif of the festival: experiences of loss, new beginnings and fateful encounters that initiate new connections. "In this context, the festival offers more than just a framework - it is a temporary nest. A shelter in which voices shaped by experiences of displacement can resonate with each other and create new spaces of imagination," reads the curatorial statement.

The festival program is divided into three sections:

• Performance and film program (curator: Emrah Gökdemir)
• Music program (curator: Ludmila Pogodina)
• Literature and discourse program (curators: Kholoud Bidak and Anna Karpenko)

Over three days, the audience can look forward to a varied program of performances, film screenings, concerts, DJ sets, readings, discussions and an interactive food workshop. One highlight is the musical performance by South African artist Pure, whose soundscapes tell of the search for roots in foreign landscapes. The performance "Letters Home" by aliveduo(Alena Starostina and Ivan Nikolaev) uses personal diary fragments to unfold a multi-layered echo of the loss of home and the fumbling construction of a new life. In "Come Rain or Shine", filmmaker Zeynep Güzel embarks on a search for traces of her family's past in Armenia - a portrait of memory and uprooting. Further artistic contributions come from Ali Abdollahi, Parham Alizadeh, Dante Buu, Elisabete Finger, Sujatro Ghosh, Emrah Gökdemir, Ludmila Pogodina, Radio Jaguar, Zeyo Mann, Sarvenaz Mostofey, Aya Sammani, Soheil Soheili, Ma Thida, Igor Vidor and Vahid Zarezadeh, among others.

Free admission to all festival events.

You can find the entire program here.

Once We Were Trees, Now We Are Birds invites you to reflect on ruptures, turning points and new beginnings.

The counterpart to the festival is the exhibition of the same name "Once We Were Trees, Now We Are Birds", which can be seen at the ifa Gallery Berlin until June 8, 2025. It brings together around 50 positions from various disciplines such as visual arts, performance, literature and photography that deal with topics such as social violence, political oppression, restrictions on freedom of expression and human rights.

The festival is curated by: Kholoud Bidak, Emrah Gökdemir, Anna Karpenko and Ludmila Pogodina

The exhibition was curated by: Muhammad Salah Abdulaziz, Emrah Gökdemir, Anna Karpenko and Thibaut de Ruyter

About the project partners

The Martin Roth Initiative, a joint project of the ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the Goethe-Institut, was founded in response to the global decline of pre-political free spaces. It aims to offer protection to artists and cultural workers whose work is restricted by state or non-state actors and to enable them to continue their work. Since its foundation in 2017, 620 artists and cultural practitioners from 41 countries have been supported by 119 host organizations. The initiative is funded by the Federal Foreign Office. www.martin-roth-initiative.de

The Goethe-Institut in Exile offers refugee, exiled and migrant artists a place to arrive and continue their work. It is a meeting place, discourse space and stage for endangered cultural practitioners from countries in which the Goethe-Institut had to close its locations due to war and censorship. The program provides insights into stories of flight and borderline experiences as well as new beginnings and artistic diversity. It is an invitation to promote and network the vibrant cultural scene in the diaspora. www.goethe.de/exil

The Goethe-Institut is the globally active cultural institute of the Federal Republic of Germany. With currently 151 institutes in 98 countries, it promotes knowledge of the German language, fosters international cultural cooperation and conveys an up-to-date image of Germany. Through cooperation with partner institutions in numerous other locations, the Goethe-Institut has a total of around 1,000 contact points worldwide. www.goethe.de

The ifa - Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen works with partners worldwide to promote freedom in the arts, research and civil society. It gives activists, artists and academics a voice, promotes cooperation and is increasingly pursuing its goals with European partners. Based on its core competencies of art, research and civil society, ifa builds networks to achieve sustainable impact.
The ifa is funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the state of Baden-Württemberg and the state capital Stuttgart. www.ifa.de

The ifa Gallery Berlin is a place of connection and mutual exchange: it brings contemporary art into dialog and invites critical examination of topics such as global movement, migration and networking. In interdisciplinary exhibitions and educational programs, ifa-Galerie Berlin creates artistic spaces and develops long-term relationships with artists, partners and visitors. In collaborations, global contexts are explored, reflected upon and retold from different perspectives.

Address: Linienstraße 139/140, 10115 Berlin

Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday: 14:00-18:00; Thursday: 14:00-20:00; Free admission