Prologue of State
Location: nGbK, Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 11/13, 10178 Berlin
Contributors: Rebecca Pokua Korang, Erin Honeycutt, Fileona Dhkar, Jason Kunwar, Daisuke Ishida, Pisitakun Kuantalaeng, and Nischal Khadka
nGbK work group: Still Disappointed Collective
The two-day festival Prologue of State brings together young activists, artists, and scholars. One week after the Berlin state elections, it explores borders, belonging, solidarity, and collective imagination through workshops, performances, and conversations.
The festival is conceived as a prelude to the exhibition State of Disappointment, which opens at nGbK in January 2027. State of Disappointment examines declining trust in state systems as a condition from which collective reflection, resistance, care, and political imagination can emerge. Shaped by different perspectives and lived experiences across Europe and Asia, the project brings artistic, activist, and research-based practices into conversation.
Prologue of State invites everyone to come together, listen to one another, and reflect collectively. Through shared practices of care, resistance, and imagination, we ask how frustration might become a starting point for what we can make possible together.
PROGRAM
List and Listen!
Rethinking Borders And Nourishing Resistance
Sat, 26.9.26, 2.00–6.00 pm
Workshop with Erin Honeycutt
Exploring zine-making, oral traditions, and alternative ways of archiving and transmitting knowledge without fixing it into a single meaning.
When Borders Enter Our Bodies (Part 1)
Rethinking Borders And Nourishing Resistance
Sat, 26.9.26, 2.00–6.00 pm
Workshop mit Rebecca Pokua Korang
Exploring disappointment and resistance as embodied experiences through reflection and movement, while developing practices of collaboration, shared responsibility, and collective action.
Curatorial Talk (Part 1)
Rethinking Borders And Nourishing Resistance
Sat, 26.9.26, 7.00–7.30 pm
Conversation with Still Disappointed Collective
Dearest Me, Who Failed to Become a Migrant Artist by Fileona Dhkar
Rethinking Borders And Nourishing Resistance
Sat, 26.9.26, 7.00–8.15 pm
A three-act solo performance exploring the collision of art-making, bureaucracy, exhaustion, and longing, and the pressure to continually prove one’s belonging as a migrant artist in Europe.
Disobedient Dishes by Still Disappointed Collective
Rethinking Borders And Nourishing Resistance
Sat, 26.9.26, 8.30–10.00 pm
Still Disappointed Collective shares five dishes as acts of disobedience, each shaped by a different disappointment , moving from disappointment toward resistance, care, and possibilities for change.
What We Carried by Jason Kunwar
Rethinking Borders And Nourishing Resistance
Sat, 26.9.26, 9.00 pm
A performance inspired by Sangini, a women’s folk song tradition from Nepal, exploring sorrow, labor, friendship, and solidarity through communal singing.
The Frog, the Well, and the Contingent Realities
Resonating Resistance And Imagining Together
Sun, 27.9.26, 2.00–6.00 pm
Workshop with Daisuke Ishida
Working with field recordings around Alexanderplatz to explore listening, place, and lived experience through sound gathering, shared listening, and composition.
When Borders Enter Our Bodies (Part 2)
Resonating Resistance And Imagining Together
Sun, 27.9.26, 2.00–6.00 pm
Workshop with Rebecca Pokua Korang
A continuation of the first session.
Curatorial Talk
(Part 2)
Resonating Resistance And Imagining Together
Sun, 27.9.26, 7.00–7.30 pm
Conversation with Still Disappointed Collective
Raithane: Momo, Memory and Resistance
Resonating Resistance And Imagining Together
Sun, 27.9.26, 8.30–10.00 pm
Workshop by Nischal Khadka with support from Jason Kunwar
Drawing on food politics in Nepal, this workshop explores raithane (local and Indigenous) food traditions, migration, memory, and relationships to land. Participants will make momo together, share stories, eat, and reflect on belonging and resistance.
Sound of Disappointment by Pisitakun Kuantalaeng
Resonating Resistance And Imagining Together
Sun, 27.9.26, 7.30–8.15 pm
A lecture performance using protest songs, karaoke, and live sound to turn personal frustration into collective political expression.