OPEN CALL: Mensch Maschine 2025–2026
Mensch Maschine is a cooperation between the JUNGE AKADEMIE of the Akademie der Künste, VISIT, the artist in Residence programme of the E.ON Foundation, and E-WERK Luckenwalde. The programme in 2025-2026 encompasses an exhibition, symposium, interdisciplinary autumn school and artist in residency programme.
Mensch Maschine Open Call 2026: Mechanic Ghosts and Entangled Realities
Partners are offering four fully funded fellowships of 20.000 EUR to international artists wishing to realise projects operating at the intersection of art, energy and ecology, with a thematic focus on the topic of the human machine. Artists of all disciplines are eligible to apply, with ideas focused on the conceptual theme of Mechanic Ghosts and Entangled Realities.
Fellowships will be selected by a jury including Nolan Oswald Dennis, artist & researcher, Chus Martinez, Head of the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK/FHNW, associate curator of TBA21 and Artistic Director of the 36th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, Kirsten Reese, Lecturer in composition at Berlin University of the Arts & Director of the UNI.K Studio for Klangkunst und Klangforschung, Tiara Roxanne, Purhépecha Mestiza transnational Scholar & Artist, Sarah Johanna Theurer, Curator, Haus der Kunst, München and Anh-Lingh Ngo, Vice President of the Akademie der Künste, architecture theorist & curator.
Selected artists will also be invited to have a studio space at E-WERK Luckenwalde or at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin between April and June 2026. Applications close on 16 November, midnight CET.
Mensch Maschine Symposium: Soil, Sound and Memory
On November 15, the Akademie der Künste will host a symposium featuring Jonathan Gray, Juno, Wesley Goatly, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Tamara Kneese, Anh-Linh Ngo, Tiara Roxanne, Jennifer Walshe, Helen Starr and current fellows of the Mensch Maschine programme: Maithu Bùi, Victor Brim, Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Emerson Culurgioni, hn. lyonga, Sonya Isupova, Safiya Seedmother and Kira Xonorika, curated by Clara Herrmann, Tiara Roxanne and Helen Turner.
As AI continues to evolve, grow, and expand, from the material to the industrial to the digital and beyond, its impact on the Earth, climate, humanity and the more than human all too often remains invisible. For this year’s Mensch Maschine symposium, soil, sound, and memory serve as starting points for rediscovering alternative narratives and conceptions of technologies and intelligence in the arts that acknowledge global perspectives, experiences, and voices.
Mensch Machine Exhibition: Return to Earth
The exhibition Return to Earth at E-WERK Luckenwalde features the 2024 – 2025 Mensch Maschine residents Maithu Bùi, Victor Brim & Emerson Culurgioni, hn. lyonga & Safiya Seedmother with contributions from Cate Lartey & David Odiase, Sonya Isupova, Rae Hsu, Assem Hendawi and Kira Xonorika, curated by Helen Turner, Clara Herrmann and Katharina Worf. Return to Earth seeks to reactivate the climate conversation through dissonant material, symbolic, and cosmological encounters across different times, speculations, and origin stories. Seven artists and artist duos explore the cracks between worlds to meet our entangled planet: from automated, techno-animal wars to the intelligences of community, from ancestral wisdoms to ecological technologies.
Until February 22, 2026, Saturday and Sunday 12–6pm. Check winter opening times here for details.
Mensch Maschine: New Partner Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art
Partners are excited to announce that Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw will join the Mensch Maschine programme as a new European partner in 2026. Exchange residencies, joint public programmes and an interdisciplinary Autumn School in September 2026 are planned together. The aim of this partnership is to broaden public debate in Europe and to bring together European, cultural, and regional perspectives with new networks of artists and thinkers.
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