Luft suchen II
Luft suchen I & II: two exhibitions by Ambasada Kultury at Halfsister Berlin
11–15 November 2026
Opening:
11 November, 18:30
Curator:
Liso Stec
Artists:
Aleksandra Kononchenko
Uta Bekaia
Marina Naprushkina
Initiated and organised by:
Ambasada Kultury
Supported by:
Danish Cultural Institute
Media partner:
RAZAM e.V.
Management:
Valentina Kiselyova, Anna Chistoserdova
Communication management:
Liza Mas
Design:
Sergey Shabohin
Venue:
Halfsister Berlin, Torgauer Straße 1, 10829 Berlin
From 11 to 15 November 2026, Halfsister Berlin will host Luft suchen II, the second part of Luft suchen, a two-part exhibition project initiated and organised by Ambasada Kultury. The first part, Luft suchen I, took place from 14 to 18 October 2026. The project is curated by Liso Stec, with Valentina Kiselyova curating the accompanying public programme.
The project unfolds across two exhibitions, bringing together artistic practices concerned with memory, seeing, transmission, ritual, the body, architecture and collective action.
The word luft comes from the German Luft, meaning “air”. In technical usage, it refers to a clearance or gap: a small space between parts that is necessary for movement. Without this air, a mechanism becomes too tight, friction increases, and movement loses the possibility of continuing.
In Luft suchen, this gap becomes an image of the space needed between rigid contexts — a space for breathing, response and collective action, for a thought or desire that can be heard and have an impact on reality. Here, luft is connected with freedom, time and safety, but also with the delicate work of maintaining connections in a situation of pressure.
The artists’ works emerge from different conditions of tension — political, social, migratory, economic and personal. They engage with what is difficult to hold in language: air, light, ritual, the body, architecture, voice, sign and translation. Across the works, movement takes place from lived experience to form, from an inner sensation to an image, from memory to action, and from atmosphere to matter.
Luft suchen proposes thinking of the exhibition as a search for air between the details of reality: a space in which pressure can be recognised while, at the same time, the possibility of movement can be sought. A space where personal experience meets the collective and the immaterial gradually takes form.
The second exhibition is connected with transmission. It turns to how the experience of the past can enter contemporary space through ritual, care, spiritual practices, intimacy and collective action. Here, luft appears as a possibility for healing, stabilisation and the creation of new forms of presence after change.
Public programme
Curator:
Valentina Kiselyova
11 November, 18:30
Opening
12 November, 18:30
Blessing Workshop with Aleksandra Kononchenko
What would you like to protect?
What would you wish for another person?
What kind of blessing do we need today?
In this participatory workshop, we will create our own contemporary milagros and ex-votos - votive objects traditionally offered in gratitude, devotion or in moments of need.
Through words, simple symbols and handmade forms, we will transform personal wishes, hopes and acts of care into small objects of protection.
No previous artistic experience is needed, just a wish, a thought, or something you would like to protect. Sign-up for the registration workshop https://forms.gle/Hi8f4htYEpoJe9L16 (maximum 8-10 participants)
13 November, 18:30
Curatorial tour with Liso Stec and Art Interpretation by Mikhail Gulin for Non-Human Agents, held in Belarusian
In 2022, artist Mikhail Gulin began a series of short videos titled Conversations on Beauty, addressed to his two dogs, Guy and Zhuzha. These improvised lectures on art, history, and the contemporary world drew on personal memories, free associations, and unexpected parallels. Following Guy’s death, the conversations continue with Zhuzha in the format of Lectures for Non-Human Agents. Lectures for Non-Human Agents is not an attempt to explain art to animals, but a way of questioning the familiar assumption that humans are the sole intended audience of artistic expression.
We invite visitors to bring their pets along! This time, they will be the primary audience for the conversation about art.
14 November, 16:00
Discussion "Working with the Past: Cultural Practice and the Possibility of a Future" with Zaal Andronikashvili, professor of cultural studies and cultural historian, held in English
15 November, 16:00
Finissage and vocal performance by Katsia Kaya and her choir, Choir of Wish Fulfilment, with audience participation.
Wish Fulfilment Choir is a vocal intervention by Katsia Kaya and her choir. Wishes from the exhibiting artists and the guests are turned into a spontaneous live composition, sung by the choir together with everyone in the room. For a few minutes, private hopes become a shared sound.
Artists and participants
Uta Bekaia
Uta Bekaia is a Georgian-born multimedia artist based in Berlin. Their work explores the speculative recreation of ancestral rituals through a queer utopian lens, blending traditional craftsmanship with contemporary performance. Working across wearable sculpture, costume, ceramics, textiles, installation, film, and live performance, Bekaia creates immersive worlds that reimagine identity, mythology, and collective memory. Born in Tbilisi and later living in New York for over two decades, Bekaia has exhibited and performed internationally at museums, galleries, biennials, and festivals across Europe and the United States. Their work has been presented at venues including the Museum of Modern Art in Tbilisi, ERTI Gallery, The Lodge Gallery (New York), and the Kyiv Biennial. In 2019, Bekaia co-founded Fungus, a Tbilisi-based collective supporting LGBTQ+ artists and creative communities.
Aleksandra Kononchenko
Aleksandra Kononchenko is a photographer and visual artist. Aleksandra's visual language evolves around lighting experiments and portraying the movement - both as a photographer and visual artist. Fascinated with capturing the fleeting moment, she is open for creative collaborations with performers, dancers, and actors, contributing to the creation of dynamic projections for their performances. As a photographer, Aleksandra understands the importance of reportage and has already been involved in numerous collaborations with journalists, approaching such critical social themes as autism, death penalty, domestic violence, and labor slavery, to name a few. Her photo and video works were shown in Belarus, Denmark, Spain, Italy (Biennale Architettura 2018, 2021), Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Austria.
Marina Naprushkina
Marina Naprushkina is an interdisciplinary artist who works primarily outside institutional spaces and focuses on building networks based on self-organisation. She founded the Office for Antipropaganda and initiated the New Neighborhood/Moabit initiative in Berlin in 2013. Naprushkina has participated in numerous biennials, including the Kyiv Perennial, in Bucharest, Berlin, and Istanbul. Her work has also been exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Bochum, Kunsthaus Graz, EMST – National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, and the Kunsthalle Wien. Naprushkina has taught at the Berlin University of the Arts and the weißensee kunsthochschule Berlin. She lives and works in Berlin.
Mikhail Gulin
Mikhail Gulin is a Belarusian conceptual artist, curator and actionist currently based in Germany. Working across painting, installation, performance, video and public interventions, his practice examines social stereotypes, collective memory and the mechanisms through which ideology shapes public life. Drawing on popular culture, art-historical references, irony and appropriation, Gulin reworks familiar images to challenge established meanings and expose social contradictions. His participatory actions transform urban space into a site of artistic experimentation, where encounters with the public reveal tensions surrounding individual agency, social norms and freedom of expression.
Zaal Andronikashvili
Zaal Andronikashvili is Professor of Cultural Studies at Ilia State University in Tbilisi and a Research Fellow at the Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin. A literary scholar and cultural historian, his work uses Georgia and the South Caucasus as a vantage point from which to rethink established narratives of European modernity, empire, and center and periphery. He also writes and comments on contemporary culture and politics in Georgia, Russia, and the wider post-Soviet region for international and German media, including Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, taz, and Eurozine, as well as German public broadcasting.
Katsia Kaya
Katsia Kaya is a voice artist and performer who composes her own works for voice, objects and electronics, and has performed at Kampnagel Hamburg, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Theaterhaus Stuttgart. She also leads the Wish Fulfilment Choir, where people sing their wishes together, and teaches voice through her practice bodyvoice.art.
Information about the public programme and registration links will be published on Ambasada Kultury's social media pages:
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