Suspended Waters
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| 12 EUR, reduced 6 EUR |
| Please book your ticket in advance online or at the box office in the Foyer. |
| English with simultaneous translation into Spanish and German |
| Mechanical Arena in the Foyer |
| Part of: Objects talk back |
We tossed the gold we extracted from stones into the lake. The gold we melted down and carved with our own hands. The gold others are desperate for, the gold they’ll come barking after. We cast it in so our dreams will speak, so the day won’t grow weary, so the plants will flourish and keep sustaining us. Those of us who can, who understand: we throw it all in. It will scandalize them. They’ll be baffled.
Suspended Waters is a poetic essay that connects four objects made of plant fibres: a death raft woven from reeds that has come ashore in the wrong place, a gold Muisca raft that evokes the legend of El Dorado, Amazonian flutes made of palm that can only be seen by men and a sheet of paper used for museum records. Colombian writer Eliana Hernández-Pachón explores how these objects, from the Humboldt Forum collections, sustain different worlds. Through a text pulsing with the life of more-than-human beings, with multiple voices solo and choral, Hernández-Pachón evokes worlds of ritual, sanctity, abundance. Worlds disrupted by outsiders versed in extraction, accumulation, scarcity. She shows how plants can hold time, memory, ceremony, how they can reveal and conceal, how they can heal. She follows their clues, drawing connections between disparate waters, flowing lyrically through cycles of interrelation, all the while asking: what does it mean to possess, to preserve, to let go?
Participants
Eliana Hernández-Pachón was born in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first book, The Brush, is an exquisite, aching work of historical reckoning. Through stories individual and collective, through people, elements, plants, she commemorates the massacre in the village of El Salado in February 2000 and thus speaks to the wider tragedy of mass murders in Colombia. The Brush received Colombia’s National Poetry Prize in 2020, making Hernández-Pachón the youngest poet to ever receive this honor. She is part of Como un lugar, a poetry collective that runs an independent press in Buenos Aires and organizes literary festivals in New York City and Latin America. She lives in Brooklyn.
Priya Basil is an author, and curator of the Humboldt Forum project Objects Talk Back. In her book Be My Guest/Gastfreundschaft (2019), she combines memoir, philosophy, food and politics in a reflection on hospitality in the broadest sense. Her most recent book Im Wir und Jetzt: Feministin Werden (2021) combines politics with the personal, as does her film essay on memory-culture and belonging, Locked In and Out (2020), which can be seen online.
Priya is co-founder and board member of WIR MACHEN DAS, an NGO that works with refugees and migrants for a more inclusive society. She is also a member of the advisory board of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. She has conceptualized and curated projects for various institutions including the Goethe Institut and International Literature Festival Berlin. From 2021 to 2023 Priya was International Writer in Residence for Mindscapes, a project of the Wellcome Trust UK, devoted to transforming how we understand, talk about and treat mental health. As part of this Priya undertook a research journey which spanned six continents to learn about different understandings of well being and practices of healing. In 2024, Priya was Writer in Residence for Canopy, Wellcome’s Climate and Health project. She is working on a new book which draws on her research and travels. In 2025/26 Priya is a fellow of the The Centre for Advanced Study inherit. heritage in transformation Käte Hamburger Kolleg based at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Berenice Llorens is a composer, guitarist, and experimental artist from Córdoba, Argentina, currently based in Berlin.
In her practice, Llorens collects and reinterprets sounds from nature, the city, and machines, exploring the relationship between humans, machines, and the environment to reflect on how we listen to, perceive, and alter them. Through the use of loops and delays as tools for reconfiguring memory, she turns space into her own territory, where sounds create and transform new sonic ecosystems. Through field recordings, extended guitar techniques, pedals, and synthesizers, her work moves from the human and earthly pulse to electroacoustic textures, fractured techno, and experimental soundscapes.
Her multidisciplinary work blends compositions, performances, audiovisual art, writings, drawings, and collaborations with ensembles and dance. She ventures into curating and producing radio programs, radio art as well as researching artificial intelligence, computer music, and sound spatialization.
For 15 years, she collaborated as a multi-instrumentalist in various popular music bands from the Córdoba scene, and She is a co-founder of projects like Marmotas Dreams and Toros. In 2021, she was recognized as an experimental sound artist by the National Institute of Music (INAMU) and received the Creation Grant from the National Fund for the Arts (FNA). She was part of the Amplify DAI network, supported by the British Council.
Her solo and collaborative work has been presented at major international events and cultural venues, such as Mutek (CA), Mutek (AR), ArtLab (AR), Oi Futuro (BR), Earth Day Arts Model (USA), Now Net Arts (USA), Centro de Arte Sonoro (AR), Museo Sívori (AR), LPM 2023 (GE), Morphine Raum (GE), and Acud Macht Neu (GE), among others.
Marina Cyrino is a Brazilian flutist, sound artist and researcher currently based in Berlin. She works across the fields of improvisation, composition, DIY gambiarra and performative installations. She is a member of the Brazilian experimental music label/production house Seminal Records. She holds a PhD in Music Performance and Interpretation from the University of Gothenburg.
Her flute playing is shaped by techniques developed through the use of internal amplification. Kaleidoscopic rhythmic patterns, the extensive use of objects and balloons attached to the instrument, and the use of disassembled flute parts are striking elements of her playing.
A collaboration with
internationales literaturfestival berlin (ilb)
11.–24. September 2025 Haus der Berliner Festspiele