New fellows and projects 2024

The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program proudly announces its fellows for 2024: outstanding practitioners in the fields of visual arts, film, music & sound, and literature. The DAAD fellows will reside in Berlin for up to a year, working on projects relevant to their trajectories as artists, engaging in collaborations in the city, and developing projects for daadgalerie—the Program’s versatile venue in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district.

The 2024 fellows include visual artists María José Arjona, Huma Mulji, Green Papaya, Jaanus Samma, and Anup Mathew Thomas; composers/sound artists Jay Afrisando, Ting-Jung Chen, Agustín Genoud, and Susie Ibarra; filmmakers Khavn De La Cruz, Zheng Lu Xinyuan, and Rama Thiaw; and writers Tash Aw, Logan February, China Miéville, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, María Negroni, and Maria Stepanova. 

The 2024 fellows will overlap with those 2023 artists-in-residence who are still in town: visual artists Esvin Alarcón Lam, Malik Sajad, Helena Uambembe, Sam Vernon, and Jiyoung Yoon; composers/sound artists Andrius Arutiunian, Pisitakun Kuantalaeng, Muqata’a, and Sonja Mutić; and writers Rajesh Parameswaran, Kinga Tóth, Cristina Rivera Garza, and Nhã Thuyên.

In 2024, the exhibition program kicks off on February 1 with Karim Aïnouz’s show BLAST!, a journey into the photographic and visual archive of the internationally renowned filmmaker and artist, who settled in Berlin following his DAAD fellowship in 2004. Aïnouz’s unique vision transcends formal boundaries ranging from experimental queer cinema to complex character studies and poetic explorations of his own Brazilian–Algerian origins. 

Further projects are planned with Pisitakun Kuantalaeng at CTM Festival, with Merche Blasco at MaerzMusik Festival, and with Sam Vernon, who will show her work for the first time in Germany at Kunsthaus Hamburg. Texts by Angélica Freitas, Ingeborg Bachmann, Kinga Tóth, and Nhã Thuyên are currently on view as part of Displayed Words, an ongoing project on literature in public space.  

Gascia Ouzounian, Nicole L’Huillier, Samuel Perea-Díaz, Andrius Arutiunian, Merche Blasco, and Yara Mekawei are working on an open lab on sound and materialities at daadgalerie, where visual artists Tuli Mekondjo and Patricia Belli will present solo exhibitions with newly commissioned works. Muqata’a and Zsolt Sőrés have been commissioned by the Biennale Musica in Venice. The series Solitärinnen with former literature fellows will continue with events on writers Anne Moody and Friederike Mayröcker. Interdisciplinary event series, screenings, publications, and readings will provide insight into the artistic endeavors developed during the fellows’ residencies in Berlin. 

Thanks to funding from the digiS Research Center, the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program is cataloging and digitizing archive material with the aim of examining Berlin’s contemporary and cultural history from previously underrepresented perspectives. In 2024, the focus is on collaborative mediating in conjunction with the Writing Berlin research project at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Deutsche Kinemathek, and the research project on Jewish film history at the Babelsberg Film University.

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program partners include Berlinische Galerie, Kunsthaus Hamburg, CCA Berlin, XO Curatorial Projects, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, fsk Kino, internationales literaturfestival berlin, Internationales Literaturfestival Leukerbad, Center for Literature – Burg Hülshoff, Radialsystem, as well as the CTM and MaerzMusik festivals. The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program has joined the city of Berlin’s initiative Weltoffenes Berlin, partnering with ICORN, the International Cities of Refuge Network, to provide artist-at-risk grants.

Established in 1963, the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and the Senate of Berlin.