The Next Day #158: Berlin Weekend Guide
Must-see events in Berlin: June 25-28, 2026
Berlin goes into the weekend at full heat, up to 39 degrees on Saturday and Sunday. 🔥
Two highlights for this weekend: Avant Art Festival, with Polish avant-garde across silent green, Panke, and Zenner, and MISS READ, which always pulls the most interesting conversation in the city into one room.
For the dancefloor, Family Reunion runs the weekend, twenty years of J.A.W with Theo Parrish and Floating Points. The party carries into the Hamburger Bahnhof garden with Ellen Allien, Kolonnaden is back on Museum Island Thursday to Sunday, always after 4 pm, and Mala Junta turns eight.
As for me, I’m escaping to Fusion, back only on Sunday, which by the look of it will not be a degree cooler than here.
Lalai
IF YOU DO TWO THINGS THIS WEEKEND
MISS READ: Berlin Art Book Fair 2026 [shop/gather]
26-28.06 · Fri 5-9 pm, Sat-Sun 12-7 pm · silent green Betonhalle, Gerichtstraße 35 · free
The fair's first edition at silent green, 235 exhibitors from 46 countries. Friday opens with the Dekoloniale panel. Saturday is Conceptual Poetics Day, anchored by the editors of Pist Protta, OEI and Rab-Rab Press with Sezgin Boynik on counter-bibliography. Sunday brings Chimurenga's Brandfort book and the first English Strzemiński. Full program here.
Avant Art Festival: Alva Noto - HYBR:ID UNI PARA [frequency]
Sunday 28.06 · 8 pm · ZENNER, Alt-Treptow 15 · €25
Alva Noto closes Avant Art Festival's Berlin edition paired with the first live collaboration between Jerzy Mączyński (saxophone, electronics) and J. 'MO'ONG' Santoso Pribadi (Indonesian custom-built instruments), Katarzyna Dębska on visuals. Sakamoto and Ikeda lineage on one side, homemade instrumentation on the other.
THURSDAY · 25.06
Avant Art Festival opens at silent green with three programs in one night. Capitain Petzel opens Mikołaj Sobczak alongside a Zoe Leonard piece from 1991. Sound Metaphors take the Neue Nationalgalerie terrace at sunset.
Antonina Nowacka + Drew McDowall & Pedro Maia A/V [frequency]
Thursday 25.06 · 7 pm · silent green Kuppelhalle, Gerichtstraße 35 · €17-20
Nowacka's vocal pieces are among the strongest works in ambient right now. Drew McDowall (ex-Coil) with Pedro Maia on visuals turns it into a quiet argument for what experimental still means. #AvantArtFestival
Mikołaj Sobczak ‘Ancora’ & Zoe Leonard ‘East River Park with Nancy Brooks Brody, 1991’ [look]
Thursday · 6-8 pm · Capitain Petzel, Karl-Marx-Allee 45 · free · exhibition runs through 01.08
Sobczak's three large-format paintings stage queer activists and revolutionaries against tech oligarchs and personifications of fascism. Across the room, Leonard and Brooks Brody's [4-minute Super-8 film]
UNCLOUDED: Sound Metaphors + Circadian [sweat]
Thursday · 5-10 pm · Neue Nationalgalerie terrace, Potsdamer Str. 50 · free
Sound Metaphors take over the museum’s terrace bar, Circadian curating rare Japanese teas. The label arc continues into Friday with Opal Sunn’s A/V debut at Kantine: sunset format, crisp, focused selection and no hangover.
MORE ON THURSDAY
↳ Pulp: First Germany dates since the 90s, touring More, their first record since 2001. 8 pm · Tempodrom, Möckernstraße 10 · €83 · also 27.06 [live]
↳ Cee Cee City Walk: The first in Cee Cee's new walking series, an evening stroll through the city built as a low-stakes way to meet people offline. 7 pm · meeting point near Kottbusser Brücke · RSVP required [gather]
↳ ‘Rauschen - Echoes of an Institution’: GDR-era prints surfaced from the ZfK archive alongside contemporary responses. Opening 7-10 pm · ifa galerie - Linienstraße 139/140 · free · runs to 27.09 [look]
↳ Kyiv Biennial: Stas Shärifulla & Ziliä Qansurá - Qosh yulı: Listening session on Bashqort songs about birds as ancestral spirits, recorded for Refuge Radio. 7-8:30 pm · KW Institute, Auguststraße 69 · €5 [frequency]
↳ The Portal: Kimi Recor + Yasemin Vollmond: Ninety minutes of gongs, analog drones and vocal loops, built on the room’s resonance. 7:30-9 pm · Atemporal, Boxhagener Str. 96 · €30 [frequency]
↳ DEEPDIBE Pride Edition: DJ Ipek, R-Zou, Lesch: Turkish electronic dance music since the SO36 Gayhane years, with Lesch from Gazino Neukölln. 8 pm-2 am · Klunkerkranich, Karl-Marx-Straße 66 · €9 [sweat]
FRIDAY · 26.06
The Family Reunion takes the night, twenty years of J.A.W with Theo Parrish, Floating Points and Mark Ernestus in one room. HKW opens Sonic Pluriverse Festival with a Gnawa parade through the Tiergarten and Vieux Farka Touré on the roof. Avant Art Festival moves to Panke.
Family Reunion / 20 Years of J.A.W [sweat]
Fri-Mon · 7 pm - 3 am (day & night program) · venue TBA · €31-60
Twenty years of J.A.W with a three-day festival featuring a stellar line-up with Theo Parrish, Floating Points, Marcellus Pittman, Mark Ernestus, Tikiman, Palms Trax, Arp Frique, MUSCLECARS, Suze Ijó, Monica Mussungo, and Amuleto Manuela.
Sonic Pluriverse Festival: Gnawa Parade + Vieux Farka Touré + saHHar [live] Friday · Parade 5-7:15 pm (free) · Vieux Farka Touré 7:30-9 pm (€24/20) · saHHar DJ 9-11 pm (free) · HKW, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
Hicham Bilali & Black Koyo lead the Gnawa parade from HKW through the Tiergarten and back, joined by Berlin flamenco, Candomblé and Santería communities. Then Vieux Farka Touré on the rooftop, then saHHar’s DJ set. Curated by Alaa Zouiten. The program runs for five weekends.
Takkak Takkak / HULUBALANG / Evicshen / URIN [frequency]
Friday · 9 pm-1 am · Panke, Gerichtstraße 23 · €17-20
Takkak Takkak and HULUBALANG bring Indonesian rhythm-driven noise. Evicshen (Victoria Shen) is one of the most physical performers in US underground noise. URIN closes. #AvantArtFestival
Orchestral Sessions: Giacinto Scelsi & Avi Caspi [frequency]
Friday · 8-10 pm · Halle am Berghain, Am Wriezener Bahnhof · €47
Scelsi played in total darkness, opening with Quattro Pezzi for solo trumpet (Mathilde Conley), then brass, then violin (Grégoire Simon), then full orchestra. Caspi conducts. Second-season opener for the series.
Qui a tué mon père (Who killed my father) directed by Thomas Ostermeier [watch]
Friday · 8 pm · Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Kurfürstendamm 153. In FR with DE and EN surtitles (also 27-28.06) · €9-48.
Using the broken body of his father as a starting point, French writer Édouard Louis undertakes a defiant rewrite of the recent political and social history of France. Édouard Louis is a performer in one of his own works.
MORE ON FRIDAY
↳ Time to Listen: Multispecies Creativity in Music and Sound: Conference paired with the spreeklänge walk. Composers and ecologists on water, rivers, non-human listening. Fri-Sat · 1-5:30 pm · ADK Hanseatenweg · in English · free [watch]
↳ Dr Adam Haar Horowitz & Nicole L’Huillier - ‘The Science of Dreaming’: Lecture and talk on dream science inside L’Huillier’s ‘Rehearsal Room’, moderated by Christina Landbrecht. 6-8 pm · Schering Stiftung, Unter den Linden 32-34 · free [watch]
↳ Panda Bear & Sonic Boom: ‘A ? of WHEN’ Listening + Q&A + DJ + Signing: Pre-release listening party with Lennox and Kember for their new record. 8 pm · Rough Trade Berlin · Karl-Marx-Straße 101 · €25 [live]
↳ BULLYACHE - ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’: The Venice Biennale piece arrives in Berlin. 9 pm · Sophiensæle, Sophienstraße 18 · €10-25 · also 27.06 [dance/watch]
↳ Tresor meets Hard Wax: Hard Wax selectors on Tresor’s system. Sarah Farina, Amanda Mussi, RRRKRTA, The Advent, twelve hours into Saturday afternoon. 11 pm-12 pm · Tresor · €22 [sweat]
SATURDAY · 27.06
hackedepicciotto play the silent green Kuppelhalle. Kolya Nemoi’s first stage installation activates Show Me The Body and Ho99o9 at Kesselhaus. Mala Junta turn 8. HKW continues Sonic Pluriverse with Majid Bekkas and Bassekou Kouyaté on the rooftop.
spreeklänge: A musical path along the Spree [frequency]
Saturday 27.06 · Entry 6-7:45 pm, walk 2-3 hours · Caprivibrücke to Rohrdammbrücke · €15/9 · in German · also 25-26.06
Eleven new commissions sited along five kilometres of the Spree in Charlottenburg. Singers in rowboats, bat-sound research from the Faule Spree, an Andean cosmology by school students. ELISION Ensemble on the scores.
hackedepicciotto: Sonic Morgue [frequency]
Saturday · 8 pm · silent green Kuppelhalle, Gerichtstraße 35 · €28
Alexander Hacke (Einstürzende Neubauten) and Danielle de Picciotto in a new piece built around drone, narration and slow ritual. Forty years of making strange beauty feel urgent. Listen to them here.
fünf minuten stille (five minutes of silence) directed by Giulia Lancellotti [watch]
Saturday · 8 pm · Deutsches Theater, Schumannstraße 13 A · In DE without surtitles · €18
Three people trapped in a room seek five minutes of silence, but the noise of the outside world keeps intruding. A sharp, darkly comic reflection on modern life and human coexistence.
MORE ON SATURDAY
↳ stay hungry: Project Space Festival, opening on a Tempelhof green strip. 4-9 pm · Neukölln - location here · free [look]
↳ Tag der Architektur 2026: Architecture tours and open studios across the city. sauerbruch hutton and Zvi Hecker open their studios, Max Dudler’s U-Bahn Museumsinsel on the tour. Sat-Sun · in German · free [gather]
↳ Festa Junina, Arraiá da Bossa: Berlin's biggest Brazilian food market for São João, feijoada, acarajé and a cachaça bar across the whole Festsaal. 1 pm-4 am · Festsaal Kreuzberg, Am Flutgraben 2 · €18 [gather/food]
↳ Artur Rumiński / Wojtek Kurek & Olga Balińska / Corazón de Robota: Avant Art's experimental afternoon: synths built inside chocolate boxes, guitar as noise generator, paper as a third performer. 4-8 pm · Richten25, Gerichtstr. 25 · free, 18+ [frequency] #AvantArtFestival
↳ HWXXNG / The Gospels of Aerial by Women-Antennas: Jaeho Hwang reforges Korean ceremonial music into techno on this year's K-Core, playing alongside the Women-Antennas video show. 8 pm · Panke · free, 18+ [frequency] #AvantArtFestival
↳ Mala Junta 8th Anniversary: Celebrating eight years with CCL, OK Williams, Yazzus, Hyperaktivist, D.Dan, DJ Babatr, Mary Lake, Matas on the bill. Midnight - 10 pm · RSO, Schnellerstrasse 137 · €25 [sweat]
↳ Tresor invites Surgeon: Surgeon on Tresor’s system. Nørbak, Any Mello, Marina George, Monty Luke. Thirteen hours into Sunday. 11 pm-12 pm · Tresor · €22 [sweat]
SUNDAY · 28.06
Alva Noto closes Avant Art Festival. Crushed Now brings out a 1930s electro-acoustic piano at Funkhaus. The first Reading Rave lands at Volkspark am Weinberg.
Avant Art Festival: Alva Noto - HYBR:ID UNI PARA: see above. 8-10:30 pm
Bluets, Directed by Katie Mitchell [watch]
Sunday · 7:30 pm · Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, Kurfürstendamm 153 · In DE without surtitles · (also 27.06 and 29.06 - In DE with EN Surtitles) · €9-48.
Bluets transforms Maggie Nelson’s cult book into a poetic stage work exploring heartbreak, friendship and obsession through the color blue, blending philosophy, memory and grief. It’s a beautiful and creative scenography.
MORE ON SUNDAY
↳ 1-Hour Reading Rave: The Offline Club’s first Berlin edition. Sixty minutes phone-free in the park with live music by Jem and Lyn. 12-1 pm · Volkspark am Weinberg, Veteranenstraße 9 · free [gather]
↳ KVOST tour: ‘Queere Kunst in der DDR?’: Guided tour of the GDR queer art show with Viviane Tabach, final weekend. 2:30 pm · KVOST & Werkbundarchiv, Leipziger Straße 47 · free with ticket admission · Tour in English [look]
↳ Open Haus: Lightscape, Doug Aitken: Aitken's Lightscape, recorded with the LA Master Chorale, spatialized for Reethaus by Soundwalk Collective. Minimalism in sunset colors. 2-8 pm · Reethaus, Köpenicker Ch 3a · €7.50
↳ The Bittersweet Swap: Mitte Daily's clothes-and-objects swap. Bring a piece you still like, leave with one someone else almost kept. 4 - 8 pm · MITTE BÜRO, Torstraße 170 · RSVP required [swap/gather]
↳ Pyramid Party x Sound Inkarnations: Day Retreat: Day retreat on Hošek Contemporary’s 1910 cargo-ship gallery. Bansuri, Chinese zither, modular synths, gong-bath close. 70 spots. 4-9 pm · Hošek Contemporary · €33-55 [frequency]
↳ Crushed Now // Distributed Presence: Reinhold Friedl plays a 1930s electro-acoustic Neo-Bechstein into Sharma’s 3D-audio rig, with Boris Eldagsen in the mix. Concert as human-machine experiment. 6-8 pm · Funkhaus · €12 [frequency]
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SAVE THE DATE
Sanctum of Sound: Fifty-one hours of ambient, drone and exploratory electronics with no fixed schedule, you come and go at your own pace. Bohren & Der Club of Gore, Pavel Milyakov, Woody92, Ishq, Deadbeat and more. For the deep listening crowd that treats duration as the point. 03-05.07 · Mahalla · €42-80
Sunn O))) at silent green: CTM presents the new Sunn O))) record in full, drone rebuilt from over 100 guitar tracks blasted into the landscape. Mon 06.07 sold out · Tue 07.07 · 8 pm · silent green/Betonhalle · €45 [frequency]
Safety Trance: DESTRUCCIÓN A/V + Evita Manji + Bungalovv: The Latin American axis of post-club. 30.06 · 7:30 pm · silent green Betonhalle · €18-22 [frequency]
Asian Arts Days: Chain Room Party: All-night techno in the Feuerle Puig House Chain Room, opening the inaugural Asian Arts Days. Sanna Mun, Makoto Inoue, Bao Bui, Eline, Jinan, Róng. 03.07 · 11:30 pm · Feuerle Puig House · €22