Since its founding, nGbK has been committed to providing a space, primarily for international groups within Berlin’s urban community, to present their perspectives. In the fall of 2026, a series of exhibitions and events will begin that explore the changes taking place in a democratic public sphere.

The two-day festival Prologue of State launches the series, bringing together young activists, artists, and scholars. One week after the Berlin state election, they will explore borders, belonging, and solidarity through workshops, performances, and conversations.

The festival also marks the beginning of the multi-part project State of Disappointment, which will culminate in an exhibition in January 2027. State of Disappointment explores declining trust in state systems as a condition from which collective reflection, resistance, care, and political imagination can emerge. The project, which is shaped by the perspective of an Asian diaspora in Berlin, brings artistic, activist, and research-based practices into dialogue with each other.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication and an extensive program of events that unfold along current forms of public protest in Berlin.

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Prologue of State
Festival
September 26–27, 2026, 2–10 pm
Free admission

What kinds of knowledge emerge when frustration is articulated collectively? Prologue of State explores how frustration and democratic fatigue might generate shared knowledge, care, solidarity, and possibilities for imagining together.

Each of the two festival days begins with a workshop program designed to create encounters and conversations between activist perspectives and artistic practices. Through embodied exercises, listening, archiving, and collective discussion, participants work together around different forms of political disappointment and resistance. In the evening, the festival opens into a public gathering, bringing these questions into a wider space through conversations, performances, sound, food, and communal exchange.

Contributors: Rebecca Pokua Korang, Erin Honeycutt, Fileona Dhkar, Jason Kunwar, Daisuke Ishida, Pisitakun Kuantalaeng and Nischal Khadka

nGbK work group: Still Disappointed Collective

Program

Saturday, September 26

2–6 pm
List and Listen!
Workshop with Erin Honeycutt

2–6 pm
When Borders Enter Our Bodies (Part 1)
Workshop with Rebecca Pokua Korang

7–7:30 pm
Curatorial Talk
with the Still Disappointed Collective

7–8:15 pm
Dearest Me, Who Failed to Become a Migrant Artist
Performance by Fileona Dhkar

8:30–10 pm
Disobedient Dishes
Communal meal with the Still Disappointed Collective

9 pm
What We Carried
Performance by Jason Kunwar

Sunday, September 27

2–6 pm
When Borders Enter Our Bodies (Part 2)
Workshop with Rebecca Pokua Korang

2–6 pm
The Frog, the Well, and the Contingent Realities
Workshop mit Daisuke Ishida

7–7:30 pm
Curatorial Talk
with the Still Disappointed Collective

7:30–8:15 pm
Sound of Disappointment
Lecture Performance by Pisitakun Kuantalaeng

8:30–10 pm
Raithane: Momo, Memory and Resistance
Workshop by Nischal Khadka with support from Jason Kunwar

Detailed information on the program is available here.

Detailed information for visitors and on accessibility is available here.

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