Fantastic Playground Berlin – iHeartBerlin’s New Exhibition

illustration: Laura Breiling. 

Today, we are proud to announce our next big group exhibition “Fantastic Playground Berlin” which will celebrate the unique diversity of Berlin’s creative scene. It’s been a couple of years now since our last big exhibition Uncensored Berlin so we thought it was about time to do a new one. The last two years during the pandemic with its various lockdowns and restrictions have not been easy for the art and culture scene – nor have they been easy for us. This new show is our effort to reclaim spaces and draw the attention back to the creative people that we care about so much.

For decades Berlin has been the secret creative hub of Europe. From music to art. From theater to architecture. From techno to science. Berlin became the place where cultures clash – but in a good way. 

Souls in a Box – Alessandra Mannisi

Especially the creative scenes that have been working away from the mainstream and big institutions made Berlin the special place it is today. Free minds from all over the world came here to express themselves and discovered a city that despite its troublesome past is a safe space for the marginalized and the unwanted. 

Our new exhibition Fantastic Playground Berlin presents over 40 works by 20 visual artists (photography, illustration, design, scultpure, video art). An immersive part of the exhibition will come to life during the opening night when 8 different performance artists including belly dancer the Darvish, pole dancer Robyn and drag queen Santana Sexmachine invite the audience to discover the Fantastic Playground Berlin – a playground of possibilities and adventures to be explored. 

The Darvish – Andrej Russkovskij

Berlin – A Creative Ecosystem That Is Not Protected Enough

The selection of participating artists focuses on feminist and intersectional positions. In addition to topics such as queerness, nightlife, subculture, and identity, the exhibition also addresses the question of why Berlin must protect and defend its existing artistic diversity in the future. 

We’ve been writing about the Berlin creative scene for 15 years and have always found that the studios of neighborhood artists and creatives who don’t make it into the international spotlight of the art scene are always the first to be affected by urban displacement. But it is exactly these creatives who make Berlin so unique!

Dorit Bialer – Berliner in a Box

The Fantastic Playground Berlin offers precisely these neighborhood artists a stage, but also wants to document the current Berlin creative scene. Be it through the intimate insights into the livingrooms of Berlin creatives, as in the photo series “Souls in a Box” by photographer Alessandra Mannisi. Or in the photo series “Meet the Berlin Kids” by Andrej Russkovskij, who portrays queer creative people who have moved to Berlin and are trying to find their way in the urban jungle.  The so-called antagonists of the creative scene are also playfully taken for a ride: In Dorit Bialer’s iconic “Berliner in a Box,” for example, the real estate shark or the clerk at the immigration office are transformed into Playmobil figures.

For us, this exhibition is a retrospective of our own work for the blog over the past 15 years and a tribute to Berlin’s creative scene – without it Berlin would not be the same. We’ve featured almost all of the participating artists on the blog at some point and it’s the first time we are bringing them together in one show in this way.

Javier Alejandro Cerrada

Participating Artist

Kseniya Apresyan, Josefine Aspvik, Mischa Badasyan, Laura Breiling, Dorit Bialer, Javier Alejandro Cerrada, Annique Delphine, Luke Embden, Sophia Halamoda, Alessendra Mannisi, Rory Midhani, Nicola Napoli, Jessie Omamogho, Bruno Pinto da Cruz, Richard Quittenton, Benedikt Rugar, Andrej Russkovskij, Various & Gould, Very Ugly Plates, Xuehka

Dates

The opening event will take place on June 4 from 6 pm (the entry is with guestlist only, if you want to get onto the guestlist for the opening you should sign up for our newsletter below)

The exhibition will be open publicly daily from June 7 to 10 from 10 am to 7 pm. The entrance is free.

Location & Address:

The exhibition venue is the Marcell von Berlin store on Friedrichstraße, which has been specially redesigned for the event.

Marcell von Berlin – Store, Friedrichstraße 172, 10117 Berlin-Mitte

Support & Funding

The realization of Fantastic Playground Berlin is supported by the district office of Mitte, which wants to give a cultural impulse to the inner city and especially make the traffic-calmed Friedrichstraße a unique place in Berlin’s creative landscape. Also we thank Marcell von Berlin for supporting our project as a partner in crime and offering help and support along the way.