When you step into the Hanseatenweg building of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, you are met with more than just an art exhibition; it feels more like the silent cry of a world holding its breath, unsure of which way to turn. This spring of 2026 finds Europe and the rest of the world in an increasingly harsh era of political, ecological, and social crises erupting one after another. In exactly this climate, 25 international fellows of the Junge Akademie offer us a sanctuary with Vessel & Voyager—a place to stop and look at the burning world, to mourn, and perhaps to start anew from the ashes.
The two words forming the skeleton of the exhibition point to two fundamental modes of existence as old as human history. The Vessel is the inclusive void that carries, protects, and preserves memories, untold stories, losses, and voices. The Voyager is the movement itself, connecting spaces, generations, and lost times, carrying the contents of that vessel into tomorrow. This duality never leaves your side as you navigate the exhibition. In one room, you feel the heavy sediment of the past within you; in the next, you find yourself chasing a faint but stubborn hope for the future.
Is the Body a House?
As you wander through the exhibition space, the physical contact the works establish with you is surprisingly intense. Hundreds of drawings that excavate the deep layers of time within the human body—whispering with ancestors and trees—remind us of the roots from which we have been severed. Hrishikesh Pawar’s performative and visual work, If My Body Is a House, created alongside Parkinson’s patients, strikes the viewer with the realization that the body is not merely flesh; it is a home that can stand tall even amidst vulnerabilities, tremors, and collapse.
On the other hand, metal sculptures that freeze the moment of collapse seem to bend toward the viewer. The coldness of this metal, juxtaposed with the sensation of fire in Hana Yoo’s Soft Ashes Still Burn, perfectly summarizes the world’s current uncanny state. We are all walking that thin line between protest and destruction, rebellion and despair. Artists turn their cameras toward the sky to show us not just clouds, but the unwritten parts of history, invisible power structures, and domination. The sky becomes a mirror, a window; we relearn how to look, and how to truly see.
Questions We Dare Not Ask
Curators Clara Herrmann and Linnéa Meiners refrain from dictating this massive narrative to the viewer, instead leaving three whispered questions lingering in the space: What have we lost and what are we not telling? How do we remember and what are we actually made of? What do we protect and how do we connect to one another?
The answers to these questions are not easy—especially in today’s world, where loss and fragmentation have become commonplace, and borders and walls are being reinforced. Vessel & Voyager is far from a mere attempt at an aesthetic feast; it is an effort to apply balm to a bleeding wound, or at least to refuse to deny that wound’s existence. A frame from Marina Naprushkina’s film Mama, How Much Longer? documents the purest form of this waiting and resilience.
Open until May 10, this exhibition serves as a heavy, deep, and jarring antidote to today’s fast-consuming, numbing reality that forces us to forget. Vessel & Voyager makes us question how full the vessels we carry within us are, and where—and how—we will travel with this burden. If your path leads to Berlin, listen to the voices of these 25 young voyagers in the spacious halls of Hanseatenweg. Because even while the world burns, there is always a story to tell, a mourning to be held, and a bond to be rebuilt.
Exhibition Details:
- Venue: Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, Berlin
- Artists: 25 International Fellows of the Junge Akademie
- Dates: Running until May 10, 2026
- Curators: Clara Herrmann and Linnéa Meiners
