Kyiv Biennial – A Bird That Cannot Land

The Kyiv Biennial is a nomadic, international project that interweaves artistic, political and social issues. The KW chapter of the Biennial, A Bird That Cannot Land, consists of an extensive exhibition, live and discursive program that spans the entire building and extends the Biennial's reflections through contemporary art, sound and exchange.

Against the backdrop of changing political realities, A Bird That Cannot Land focuses on the concept of a "Middle-East Europe" and its history marked by wars, colonialism and imperialism. Recurring conflicts reopen old wounds and test our understanding of shared experiences, common language and common ideas. Both the exhibition and the live and discourse program link post-Soviet Eastern Europe with Central and Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region. They are dedicated to the question of how we can create meaning and experience belonging in times of war, insecurity and alienation. The Biennale operates in the context of realities in which continuities of meaning are interrupted and understands inner and outer exile as a central condition of contemporary life.

A Bird That Cannot Land aims to create spaces in which intertwined pasts and presents become audible and existing narratives and perceptions of geographies, histories and realities can be questioned. The Biennale presents over 40 international voices from different generations, from Berlin and other places. The works on display reflect lived experiences shaped by ruptures, memories of migration, their affective architectures and the historical traces that persist both in bodies and in the spaces we inhabit.

The Biennale's live program foregrounds body-based, collective and process-oriented practices by artists from Berlin's diasporic communities. Performances, concerts and listening sessions use sound to explore political and geographical relationships, while polyphonic voices become carriers of history, emotion and resilience. The discourse program delves into questions of migration, exclusion and coexistence as well as extractivism and petrocapitalism in a variety of academic discussions.

Participants: Abdullah Miniawy, Adam Hanieh, Alona Karavai, Anna Ehrenstein and Yara Mekawei, Anna Zvyagintseva, Anton Kats and the Grounded Outer Space People, Assaf Gruber, Aykan Safoğlu, Bulgarian Voices Berlin, Dana Kavelina, Eda Aslan, Farahnaz Sharifi, Fehras Publishing Practices, Flaka Haliti, Geta Brătescu, Gulnur Mukazhanova, Heinali and Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko, Hito Steyerl, Hiwa K, Ihor Tsymbrovsky, Ivan Krastev, Joyce Joumaa, Julia Cimafiejeva, Katarina Gryvul, Lesia Vasylchenko, Lida Abdul, Lucia Kagramanyan, Madina Tlostanova, Majd Abdel Hamid, Mona Hatoum, Nazanin Noori, Neda Saeedi, Nour Sokhon, Oleksiy Radynski, Philipp Goll, Samia Halaby, Saodat Ismailova, Sattar Stas Shärifullá and Ziliä Qansurá , Seyyare - Anatolian Women's Choir, Stefaniia Bodnia and Jack Dove, Tjan Zaotschnaja, Tolia Astakhishvili, Ulrike Herrmann, Wafaa Saied

In 2025, the Kyiv Biennial took place across Europe and included a series of exhibitions and events, including at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the M HKA in Antwerp, the Dnipro Center for Contemporary Culture, the Dovzhenko Centre in Kyiv and the Lentos Art Museum in Linz. A Bird That Cannot Land picks up on the themes of these various stations of the 2025 Biennale and takes them further.

Curatorial team of KW:

Curator: Sofie Krogh Christensen
Assistant curator: Linda Franken
Exhibition assistant: Radia Soukni

Live curator: Lorena Juan
Live assistant curator: Nikolas Brummer
Live program assistant: Saba Bagheri

Discourse Program Curator: Vasyl Cherepanyn
Discourse Program Assistant: Triin Metsla

Extended curatorial team:

Vasyl Cherepanyn, Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC), Kyiv
Emma Enderby, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Nav Haq, M HKA - Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp
Sarah Jonas, Lentos Art Museum Linz
Serge Klymko, Visual Culture Research Center (VCRC), Kyiv
Magda Lipska, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw