Newsletter #1.2 (reminder): Soft Gardens is opening today!

Dear all, friends, comrades, colleagues, collaborators and art-enthusiasts,

In this newsletter, I'd like to once again highlight today's opening of Soft Gardens and provide more details about the supporting program for the first half of the exhibition runtime.

The exhibition is curated by Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes with works by Kallia Kefala and Kim Bode as well as further contributions by: 

hooops (Lena Astarte Posch & Nicola van Straaten); Lorena Carràs and Jean-Marie Dhur (Zabriskie - Bookshop for Culture and Nature) together with Sina Ribak; Aiko Okamoto; Wanda Dubrau & Juliet Meding; Suza Husse and Aziza Ahmad (Poster).
Accessibility-relaxed format: Agnieszka Habraschka.

Soft Gardens is an exhibition with accompanying program that are developed in a relaxed format and take place in a relaxed atmosphere. You can find more information on what a relaxed format involves and other updated accessibility information, as well as content notes for the first three program highlights, in the attached accessible PDF documents.

intro:

The search for a story about another place has brought you here.
Is it a place of dreams or is it the place from a story that has been entrusted to you?

Whatever it is, you are here now.

The light has a warm temperature that permeates the whole room.
You hear voices ...the voices of the stones, the voices of the weather and the voices of the water.

The room speaks.

Welcome to Soft Gardens

a project between Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes and Kallia Kefala.

Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes is an ongoing artistic research initiated by Kim Bode, that explores landscapes not only as material and physical spaces but also as collective ideas and political terrains. Functioning as a platform for collaboration and exchange, it weaves together artistic research and practice. Kallia Kefala joined the project as part of the exhibition Soft Gardens – a multimedia installation comprising from textile, sculptural, floral and audio works.

In Soft Gardens, the concept of landscape is re-contextualized and expanded. It encompasses not only physical or geographical spaces but also inner landscapes. These inner landscapes are materialized as spatial and sound installations, inviting visitors to experience them as queer utopian places in the making. 

The two rooms of the project space sign,CIAT are transformed into a cozy but also eerie "nature" - a space open and inviting. Visitors can rest there, focus on their sensory awareness and engage with the thoughts and impulses that arise. The installation functions as a retreat, a site for imagination and exchange that visitors can actively shape. Textile sculptures invite reclining, ceramic and straw-metal sculptures can be touched and used to create sound, and plant sculptures can be experienced through touch and scent. Light and sound conditions are regulated, allowing for a sensory-friendly experience of the space. The exhibition primarily appeals to the senses of touch and hearing (haptics and audio). You can sit, lie down, linger and listen in the rooms. 

The installation questions the categorical divisions between nature and culture, human and non-human, real space and inner space, linear time and queer time, the private and the public. These binaries blur, allowing images of the familiar world to dissolve, making space for new possibilities of coexistence. 

The landscapes that emerge reflect collective desires and political aspirations for alternative ways of being together. They serve as blueprints for a world of queer, cross-species coexistence and mutual support.

We would like to thank the Soft Gardens team:
graphic design: Aziza Ahmad; exhibition set up: Erfan Aboutalebi; photo documentation: Louisa Boeszoermeny; access friend: jojo büttler; technical management: Miriam Döring; production management: Michael Fesca; supervision during opening times: Orestis Giannoulis and Tama-Nomi Jacobi; accessibility-relaxed format: Agnieszka Habraschka; tea talk english whisper translation: Marc Hiatt & Sonja Hornung; artist assistance: Lydia Miligkou; text editing: Gabriele Neußer; sound mastering: Cécile Perrot; exhibition dismantling: Viktor Petrov; press & PR work: Wayra Schübel

We would also like to thank Nic and Sim from sign, CIAT and our friends Elisabeth Pieper, Manie Du Plessis, and Claudia Rutz for their support.

Program highlights in more detail: 

How can needs become possible fictions? Wanda and Juliet want to open a space for the unfolding of wishes that have not yet been formulated. We want to rest, dream and mutate together.

Based on the perception that we are all too often surrounded by exclusionary and discriminatory spaces and structures, we want to playfully find alternative narratives in the workshop. Based on our concrete needs, how can we create collective fictions of places and forms of organization that are less violent? And how can we initiate transformation processes? Stories full of beginnings emerge that connect, confuse, pause and are attentive. We rest, fabulate and mutate.

_____

This walk through Alter Luisenstädtischer Friedhof is an invitation to practice kinship – as a way to approach the idea of interconnectedness of all life.

The predominant schools of western thought see the spheres of culture (humans) and nature (all other living beings) as separate from each other, and the human sphere as one that stands above all others. But in the context of multiple global crises happening, we are witnessing a shift towards more holistic natureculture approaches. The Kinship Walk explores the idea that all creatures, including humans, are interconnected and dependent on each other.

During the walk, we will introduce various practices to help us connect with the more-than-human world. Getting to know the landscape through different exercises and methods, including walking, situated readings, listening and other awareness practices – may inspire us to take a more inclusive perspective – in which we can consider the perspective of an oak tree, a squirrel or a hawk.

From practical science to literature, from sound practice to awareness routines, the hosts embrace various disciplines and perspectives, in their attempt to make entanglements perceptible. Everyone is invited to join the walk and to share their experience in re-connecting with the living world.

In cooperation with the Ev. Friedhofsverband Berlin Stadtmitte.
You can find more information about the facilitators at: 
www.zabriskie.de/ and www.sinaribak.net/

_____

Landscapes hold histories of extraction, displacement, and colonialism, but also resistance, memory, and alternative futures. Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes is forming a reading group to critically examine landscapes as sites of struggle, relation, and transformation. Through queer ecologies, anti-colonial, and anti-capitalist perspectives, we will explore landscapes as dynamic entities rather than passive backdrops.

Open to artists, researchers, and anyone curious, this reading group invites collective engagement with texts and practices that challenge extractivist, capitalist, and heteronormative frames. No formal expertise is required – just curiosity, care, and a commitment to learning and unlearning. If you're curious and open to exploring these ideas together, feel free to send an email with a few lines about you or your interest to desk[at|bureau-of-transitioning-landscapes[dot]net to get involved.

The group will meet on:

April 10th (18:30-20:00) – First meeting: [Online/Digital]
*Participation in this preparatory session is not required for the main event on April 17th*
We'll gather online for an introductory session where we can meet, share our interests, and discuss the topics we’d like to explore together. This will be informal and open conversation to lay the groundwork for the group and upcoming sessions.

 April 17th (18:00-20:00) – Second Meeting: [Offline/Analog]: In the framework of the exhibition soft gardens (Berlin)
This session will take place in person at the soft gardens exhibition in Berlin. The proposed reading for this session is Indefinite Terrains by Polly Stanton, which examines landscapes as ever-changing, shaped by histories of power and memory. In the context of the exhibition, we’ll discuss how these themes manifest in both the reading and the space itself.

 May 15th (18:00-20:00) – Digital/Online meeting: Topics to be determined
Our third session will be digital again, and the topics we explore will be chosen collectively based on the group’s interests and participation.

______

Further program: 

20.4.25 ✿ 15:00 - 17:00 WORKSHOP
Listen - Transmit - Listen - Transmit
with Aiko Okamoto
in English, German and Japanese // registration mandatory

26.4.25 ✿ 15:00 - 17:00 WORKSHOP
Napping with hooops
with Lena Astarte Posch & Nicola van Straaten
in English and German // registration mandatory

27.4.25 ✿ 16:30 - 19:00 PARTICIPATORY PERFORMANCE
huuummming
by Kallia Kefala
Multilingual // registration recommended

3.5.25 ✿ 16:00 - 18:00 TEA TALK
On staying soft and being gardens
with Suza Husse, Kallia Kefala and Kim Bode
in English whisper translation and German

4.5.25 ✿ 15:00 - 19:00 CLOSING WITH DRINKS

For further information on the exhibition and accompanying program please visit:
https://bureau-of-transitioning-landscapes.net/

✿ I'm very excited and looking forward to seeing you at the exhibition! ✿