This year’s edition of Art in the Underground takes place at three stations along the U2 (underground) line: Nollendorfplatz, Bülowstrasse, and Schönhauser Allee.
Basics of Care, Adrian Marie Blount
Through a visual collage made from repurposed images, Blount's billboard encourages those who are on their daily commutes to engage in the recentering of black queer love, softness, care.
It aims to promote the act of fantasizing or imaginary building while existing in spaces that are structurally inaccessible or violent to those with intersecting identities.
Throughout July, subtle durational live activations of love and care between two or more dark-skinned black queer bodies will take place at the U-Bhf Nollendorfplatz – This is not a spectacle. This is a representation that despite policy in place to erase us, despite the global white supremacist cancer of hate, despite propaganda intended to spread false narratives about us that lead to our disposal, we are still here with the profound ability to love and care for each other.
Adrian Marie Blount or GodXXX Noirphiles is a California born- non binary- loving single parent - multidisciplinary/ time-based media artist residing in Berlin, Germany since 2016. Adrian has traveled throughout the United States performing in various reputable theaters. In Germany, Adrian directed Qweendom at Theater Oberhausen and has Art Directed for House of Living Colors’ notable production series, ‘Endangered Species’ for Orangerie, English Theater Berlin and Tanztage at Sophiensaele. Their solo works have been featured at Emerging Change festival at Uferstudios, Underworld: Mycelium at Ballhaus Berlin, Münchner Kammerspiele, English Theatre Berlin, Oyoun and more. They also have guest mentored and lectured at Universität der Künste Berlin. Additionally, they have been featured in productions at Volksbühne, Maxim Gorki Theater, Ballhaus Naunynstrasse and beyond. Recently, Blount’s premier multi disciplinary sculptural installation was featured at the Germanisches National Museum.
The area around Nollendorfplatz, a bustling station in the Schöneberg district, is the historical center of queer life in Berlin. The pride flag has flown here for many years, and the station itself is occasionally lit up in rainbow colors. However, the masculine understanding of queerness visible in some streets, bars, and shops has barely changed since the 1980s, even though queer women shaped the neighborhood significantly in the 1920s and 1930s. Where there used to be bars and hotels catering to women, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, and trans people in the streets north and east of Nollendorfplatz station – such as Toppkeller in Schwerinstrasse, Café Olala in Zietenstrasse, and Verona Diele in Kleiststrasse – one now finds queer bookshops and leather stores. Today, the area is dominated mostly by white, cis gay men, despite the generally much higher visibility of feminine, non-binary, and non-white identities and bodies within the city. Art in the Underground seeks to come in here and challenge this relatively homogenous, masculine reality at and around Nollendorfplatz with an intersectional approach.
Soundtrax for a Bazaar,
Franziska Pierwoss & Siska
Soundtrax for a Bazaar, also known as $on’ny Music, revives the vibrant legacy of the Turkish Bazaar at U-Bhf Bülowstraße, a multicultural hub from 1978 to 1991.
When the U2 Line was interrupted due to the division of Berlin, the bazaar emerged on the inoperative train tracks, housing jewelry shops, wedding boutiques, cassette stores, and tea lounges – a lively meeting point for Berlin’s Turkish community. At its heart was the Gazino, where musicians tested their talents and visitors gathered for unforgettable nights of live music.
Inspired by this history, the project collaborates with contemporary underground artists who embody Schöneberg’s evolving soundscape. Large-format billboards in the station and limited-edition cassette release honor the era’s tape culture; a free live concert transforms the space beneath the station into a communal celebration.
Juxtaposed against Sony Music’s headquarters, the project reflects on music’s commercialization while reclaiming public space to revive the social and artistic energy that once defined Bülowstraße as a cultural landmark.
Siska, born in Beirut and based in Berlin, is a multidisciplinary artist exploring sociopolitical narratives through archiveology, film, and performance. With a Master’s in Film and Audiovisual Arts from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, Siska was a key figure in Beirut’s early graffiti scene and a member of the Lebanese hip-hop group Kitaa Beirut قطاع بیروت. Siska’s work often takes the form of extended cinema, blending cinematic codes with experimental narratives. Siska created and co-curated redeem ردیم at Haus der Statistik (2021) and in 2024 became artistic director of ADfD Alternative Monument for Germany, an AR memorial on migration. A former Villa Aurora fellow (2022), Siska’s work has been shown internationally at venues like Martin Gropius Bau, Berlinale, Halle 14, Paris 104 and the Mosaic Rooms. Siska’s practice bridges visual arts, music, and performance, engaging with themes of memory, migration, and identity.
Franziska Pierwoss is an artist working in performance and installation. She studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig and the Lebanese University of Beirut.
Her work explores site-specific installations and allows for unexpected encounters, fostering dialogue between individuals with diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Her performances have been presented at the Fast Forward Festival, the Sharjah Biennial, the Literaturforum Brecht-Haus, and nGbK, among others. With a strong focus on the politics of food, she examines its use as a political symbol and has spent years researching the social, political, and financial dynamics of waste management within her work. Since 2010, she has collaborated with Siska on Das Kino Projekt, a temporary cinema for public spaces.
In Berlin Nichts Neues, Ipek Burçak
Based on the history of the Turkish Bazaar in the late 1980s, the work In Berlin Nichts Neues (In Berlin Nothing New) at the U-Bhf Bülowstraße introduces passers-by to the city's post-migrant history by creating new narratives with references to anti-fascist and anti-racist movements. At the center stand the independent magazines and zines, such as Antifaşist Haber Bülteni, diyalog, Köxüz, Inisiyatif, and lubunya, among others, published by post-migrant anti-fascist groups in Berlin in the 1990s. The work consists of billboards and text installations whose contents are based on these publications and are visually inspired by the photo-novel aesthetic. A reading performance in the U-Bahn station with two performers will expand on the printed matter – together they give a voice to migrant anti-fascist and anti-racist struggles and the knowledge achieved through these struggles.
İpek Burçak is a multidisciplinary artist born in Istanbul and based in Berlin. She studied media and conceptual art at the School of Arts Kassel and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She works with various media, such as video, sound, installation, performance, and publishing. With a speculative approach, she investigates technologies as commons, neurodiversity, and legacies of resistance movements. She has shown her work and performed internationally, at Galerie im Turm in Berlin, SoMad in New York, Dia Chelsea, Depo Istanbul, and Kosminen in Helsinki among others. She was part of residency programs at Andreas Zuest Library in Switzerland and Anaïs Berck as part of the program Algoliterary Publishing in Brussels, Belgium. She is also 1/2 of Well Gedacht Publishing, an artist duo that engages in publishing practices.
We Are Everywhere,
Lola von der Gracht
The project We Are Everywhere aims to create visibility and appreciation for the past and present of transgender people in Germany and, simultaneously, to address the challenges transgender people face in public spaces. It brings the history of transgender people between 1899 and 1969 to life by linking historical figures with real transgender people living in Berlin today. We Are Everywhere combines artistic billboards, floor foils, and performances in the underground station.
Lola von der Gracht is an interdisciplinary artist whose work encompasses photography, collage, installation and performance.
The central theme of her work is the exploration of identity, gender, belonging and community from a queer-feminist perspective.
With a collage-like technique, Lola combines photography, drawing, and poetry into fragmentary narratives, which interweave personal experience with collective memory. Her works create space for reflection and question social norms.
Often presented in public space, Lola’s art makes queer history visible and accessible. In addition to her visual art, Lola is the lead singer of the indie punk band NIP SLIP, which has performed internationally.
Since its construction at the end of the 19th century, Bülowstrasse station has been the gateway to Berlin’s red-light district, which expands out from Potsdamer Strasse. By the early 20th century, Bülowstrasse was already central to queer life. Numerous bars, pubs, cafés, and event venues were located here, including the Dorian Gray, the Nationalhof, the Hohenzollern-Diele, the O-la-la, and many more. Potsdamer Strasse itself has a postmigrant character, and its side streets, along and around Kurfürstenstrasse, are lined by predominantly very young cis and trans sex workers, mostly from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Local politics are divided between displacing sex workers to Tempelhof and/or Wedding (in Berlin’s Mitte district) and providing support and protection through social institutions and dialogue (which would be the responsibility of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district). Queer organizations regularly provide these sex workers with essentials and offer guided historical tours through the neighborhood. Also, the area’s postmigrant residents are affected by gentrification and displacement.
Lila Fetzen,
Nadin Reschke
35 years after 1989/90, Lila Fetzen ("Purple Scraps") commemorates the officially unrecognized East German womxn movements, especially the Lila Offensive, which was founded in Prenzlauer Berg in the late 1980s. It uses historical photographs as a starting point for a search for solidarity-based gestures of resistance and the visibility of contemporary queer life. In a collective performance in urban space, the womxn's resistance of the 1980s is updated against the backdrop of today's experiences within urban space. Textile banners, costumes, and speech acts bring the demands and potential of the 1980 into the present and ask what we can take from these memories, the "lila Fetzen", and reassemble to counter today's injustices.
Nadin Reschke, born in the GDR, works as an artist, art educator, and art therapist in various social contexts. She understands her artistic work as a social practice and designs and creates processes that bring people together, stimulate dialogue, and create spaces for social action. In her work, she uses fabrics and textiles as sculptural materials, as carriers of collective history, identities, and individual experiences. Her work is feminist and critical of patriarchy, inviting viewers to discover patriarchal thought patterns in various areas of life and to critically engage with gender roles and social norms. Her recent works challenge the heterosexual norms of the city and call for feminist urban critique. Based on her own East German biography, Reschke has been researching archives on East German women's movements of the 1980s for the past 12 months. Her work is rooted in the tradition of feminist reflection while simultaneously opening new perspectives on collective and individual experiences.
We Are Everywhere,
Lola von der Gracht
The project We Are Everywhere aims to create visibility and appreciation for the past and present of transgender people in Germany and, simultaneously, to address the challenges transgender people face in public spaces. It brings the history of transgender people between 1899 and 1969 to life by linking historical figures with real transgender people living in Berlin today. We Are Everywhere combines artistic billboards, floor foils, and performances in the underground station.
Lola von der Gracht is an interdisciplinary artist whose work encompasses photography, collage, installation and performance.
The central theme of her work is the exploration of identity, gender, belonging and community from a queer-feminist perspective.
With a collage-like technique, Lola combines photography, drawing, and poetry into fragmentary narratives, which interweave personal experience with collective memory. Her works create space for reflection and question social norms.
Often presented in public space, Lola’s art makes queer history visible and accessible. In addition to her visual art, Lola is the lead singer of the indie punk band NIP SLIP, which has performed internationally.
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Queer life also flourished in the former Eastern part of the city, concentrated around Schönhauser Allee station. For years, artists in particular opened their studios to all those who did not conform to the heteronormative ideals of the GDR, hosting secret working groups, rooftop choir practice, and parties. What began as a weekly coffee meet-up eventually became one of the most important institutions for queer political and artistic work in East Berlin and laid the foundations for the Sonntagsclub, an event, information, and advice center for LGBTQIA+ people as well as friends and allies, which is still active today. Thanks to this history, Schönhauser Alle offers an especially rich point of departure for new artistic responses.
This year’s edition of Art in the Underground takes place at three stations along the U2 (underground) line: Nollendorfplatz, Bülowstrasse, and Schönhauser Allee.
Basics of Care, Adrian Marie Blount
Through a visual collage made from repurposed images, Blount's billboard encourages those who are on their daily commutes to engage in the recentering of black queer love, softness, care.
It aims to promote the act of fantasizing or imaginary building while existing in spaces that are structurally inaccessible or violent to those with intersecting identities.
Throughout July, subtle durational live activations of love and care between two or more dark-skinned black queer bodies will take place at the U-Bhf Nollendorfplatz – This is not a spectacle. This is a representation that despite policy in place to erase us, despite the global white supremacist cancer of hate, despite propaganda intended to spread false narratives about us that lead to our disposal, we are still here with the profound ability to love and care for each other.
Adrian Marie Blount or GodXXX Noirphiles is a California born- non binary- loving single parent - multidisciplinary/ time-based media artist residing in Berlin, Germany since 2016. Adrian has traveled throughout the United States performing in various reputable theaters. In Germany, Adrian directed Qweendom at Theater Oberhausen and has Art Directed for House of Living Colors’ notable production series, ‘Endangered Species’ for Orangerie, English Theater Berlin and Tanztage at Sophiensaele. Their solo works have been featured at Emerging Change festival at Uferstudios, Underworld: Mycelium at Ballhaus Berlin, Münchner Kammerspiele, English Theatre Berlin, Oyoun and more. They also have guest mentored and lectured at Universität der Künste Berlin. Additionally, they have been featured in productions at Volksbühne, Maxim Gorki Theater, Ballhaus Naunynstrasse and beyond. Recently, Blount’s premier multi disciplinary sculptural installation was featured at the Germanisches National Museum.
The area around Nollendorfplatz, a bustling station in the Schöneberg district, is the historical center of queer life in Berlin. The pride flag has flown here for many years, and the station itself is occasionally lit up in rainbow colors. However, the masculine understanding of queerness visible in some streets, bars, and shops has barely changed since the 1980s, even though queer women shaped the neighborhood significantly in the 1920s and 1930s. Where there used to be bars and hotels catering to women, lesbian, intersex, non-binary, and trans people in the streets north and east of Nollendorfplatz station – such as Toppkeller in Schwerinstrasse, Café Olala in Zietenstrasse, and Verona Diele in Kleiststrasse – one now finds queer bookshops and leather stores. Today, the area is dominated mostly by white, cis gay men, despite the generally much higher visibility of feminine, non-binary, and non-white identities and bodies within the city. Art in the Underground seeks to come in here and challenge this relatively homogenous, masculine reality at and around Nollendorfplatz with an intersectional approach.
Soundtrax for a Bazaar,
Franziska Pierwoss & Siska
Soundtrax for a Bazaar, also known as $on’ny Music, revives the vibrant legacy of the Turkish Bazaar at U-Bhf Bülowstraße, a multicultural hub from 1978 to 1991.
When the U2 Line was interrupted due to the division of Berlin, the bazaar emerged on the inoperative train tracks, housing jewelry shops, wedding boutiques, cassette stores, and tea lounges – a lively meeting point for Berlin’s Turkish community. At its heart was the Gazino, where musicians tested their talents and visitors gathered for unforgettable nights of live music.
Inspired by this history, the project collaborates with contemporary underground artists who embody Schöneberg’s evolving soundscape. Large-format billboards in the station and limited-edition cassette release honor the era’s tape culture; a free live concert transforms the space beneath the station into a communal celebration.
Juxtaposed against Sony Music’s headquarters, the project reflects on music’s commercialization while reclaiming public space to revive the social and artistic energy that once defined Bülowstraße as a cultural landmark.
Siska, born in Beirut and based in Berlin, is a multidisciplinary artist exploring sociopolitical narratives through archiveology, film, and performance. With a Master’s in Film and Audiovisual Arts from the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, Siska was a key figure in Beirut’s early graffiti scene and a member of the Lebanese hip-hop group Kitaa Beirut قطاع بیروت. Siska’s work often takes the form of extended cinema, blending cinematic codes with experimental narratives. Siska created and co-curated redeem ردیم at Haus der Statistik (2021) and in 2024 became artistic director of ADfD Alternative Monument for Germany, an AR memorial on migration. A former Villa Aurora fellow (2022), Siska’s work has been shown internationally at venues like Martin Gropius Bau, Berlinale, Halle 14, Paris 104 and the Mosaic Rooms. Siska’s practice bridges visual arts, music, and performance, engaging with themes of memory, migration, and identity.
Franziska Pierwoss is an artist working in performance and installation. She studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig and the Lebanese University of Beirut.
Her work explores site-specific installations and allows for unexpected encounters, fostering dialogue between individuals with diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Her performances have been presented at the Fast Forward Festival, the Sharjah Biennial, the Literaturforum Brecht-Haus, and nGbK, among others. With a strong focus on the politics of food, she examines its use as a political symbol and has spent years researching the social, political, and financial dynamics of waste management within her work. Since 2010, she has collaborated with Siska on Das Kino Projekt, a temporary cinema for public spaces.
In Berlin Nichts Neues, Ipek Burçak
Based on the history of the Turkish Bazaar in the late 1980s, the work In Berlin Nichts Neues (In Berlin Nothing New) at the U-Bhf Bülowstraße introduces passers-by to the city's post-migrant history by creating new narratives with references to anti-fascist and anti-racist movements. At the center stand the independent magazines and zines, such as Antifaşist Haber Bülteni, diyalog, Köxüz, Inisiyatif, and lubunya, among others, published by post-migrant anti-fascist groups in Berlin in the 1990s. The work consists of billboards and text installations whose contents are based on these publications and are visually inspired by the photo-novel aesthetic. A reading performance in the U-Bahn station with two performers will expand on the printed matter – together they give a voice to migrant anti-fascist and anti-racist struggles and the knowledge achieved through these struggles.
İpek Burçak is a multidisciplinary artist born in Istanbul and based in Berlin. She studied media and conceptual art at the School of Arts Kassel and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She works with various media, such as video, sound, installation, performance, and publishing. With a speculative approach, she investigates technologies as commons, neurodiversity, and legacies of resistance movements. She has shown her work and performed internationally, at Galerie im Turm in Berlin, SoMad in New York, Dia Chelsea, Depo Istanbul, and Kosminen in Helsinki among others. She was part of residency programs at Andreas Zuest Library in Switzerland and Anaïs Berck as part of the program Algoliterary Publishing in Brussels, Belgium. She is also 1/2 of Well Gedacht Publishing, an artist duo that engages in publishing practices.
We Are Everywhere,
Lola von der Gracht
The project We Are Everywhere aims to create visibility and appreciation for the past and present of transgender people in Germany and, simultaneously, to address the challenges transgender people face in public spaces. It brings the history of transgender people between 1899 and 1969 to life by linking historical figures with real transgender people living in Berlin today. We Are Everywhere combines artistic billboards, floor foils, and performances in the underground station.
Lola von der Gracht is an interdisciplinary artist whose work encompasses photography, collage, installation and performance.
The central theme of her work is the exploration of identity, gender, belonging and community from a queer-feminist perspective.
With a collage-like technique, Lola combines photography, drawing, and poetry into fragmentary narratives, which interweave personal experience with collective memory. Her works create space for reflection and question social norms.
Often presented in public space, Lola’s art makes queer history visible and accessible. In addition to her visual art, Lola is the lead singer of the indie punk band NIP SLIP, which has performed internationally.
Since its construction at the end of the 19th century, Bülowstrasse station has been the gateway to Berlin’s red-light district, which expands out from Potsdamer Strasse. By the early 20th century, Bülowstrasse was already central to queer life. Numerous bars, pubs, cafés, and event venues were located here, including the Dorian Gray, the Nationalhof, the Hohenzollern-Diele, the O-la-la, and many more. Potsdamer Strasse itself has a postmigrant character, and its side streets, along and around Kurfürstenstrasse, are lined by predominantly very young cis and trans sex workers, mostly from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Local politics are divided between displacing sex workers to Tempelhof and/or Wedding (in Berlin’s Mitte district) and providing support and protection through social institutions and dialogue (which would be the responsibility of the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district). Queer organizations regularly provide these sex workers with essentials and offer guided historical tours through the neighborhood. Also, the area’s postmigrant residents are affected by gentrification and displacement.
Lila Fetzen,
Nadin Reschke
35 years after 1989/90, Lila Fetzen ("Purple Scraps") commemorates the officially unrecognized East German womxn movements, especially the Lila Offensive, which was founded in Prenzlauer Berg in the late 1980s. It uses historical photographs as a starting point for a search for solidarity-based gestures of resistance and the visibility of contemporary queer life. In a collective performance in urban space, the womxn's resistance of the 1980s is updated against the backdrop of today's experiences within urban space. Textile banners, costumes, and speech acts bring the demands and potential of the 1980 into the present and ask what we can take from these memories, the "lila Fetzen", and reassemble to counter today's injustices.
Nadin Reschke, born in the GDR, works as an artist, art educator, and art therapist in various social contexts. She understands her artistic work as a social practice and designs and creates processes that bring people together, stimulate dialogue, and create spaces for social action. In her work, she uses fabrics and textiles as sculptural materials, as carriers of collective history, identities, and individual experiences. Her work is feminist and critical of patriarchy, inviting viewers to discover patriarchal thought patterns in various areas of life and to critically engage with gender roles and social norms. Her recent works challenge the heterosexual norms of the city and call for feminist urban critique. Based on her own East German biography, Reschke has been researching archives on East German women's movements of the 1980s for the past 12 months. Her work is rooted in the tradition of feminist reflection while simultaneously opening new perspectives on collective and individual experiences.
Queer life also flourished in the former Eastern part of the city, concentrated around Schönhauser Allee station. For years, artists in particular opened their studios to all those who did not conform to the heteronormative ideals of the GDR, hosting secret working groups, rooftop choir practice, and parties. What began as a weekly coffee meet-up eventually became one of the most important institutions for queer political and artistic work in East Berlin and laid the foundations for the Sonntagsclub, an event, information, and advice center for LGBTQIA+ people as well as friends and allies, which is still active today. Thanks to this history, Schönhauser Alle offers an especially rich point of departure for new artistic responses.
