Soft Power festival

A festival about definitions of culture between postwar and AI world orders—and the infrastructures of collective life.

Soft Power is a transdisciplinary festival and long-term platform at the intersection of art, music and social dialogue. Initiated by Anahita Sadighi, it looks at how culture produces influence—and what kinds of infrastructures make collective life possible. Rather than understanding power solely as coercion or economic pressure, the festival turns to quieter forces: attention, imagination, memory, desire, hospitality, trust and belonging.

In 1990, political scientist Joseph Nye coined soft power as the ability to make others want what a state wants. Soft Power Festival proposes another possibility: the ability to create conditions in which people can encounter one another, carry histories across borders, form attachments, and imagine themselves differently.

Curated together with María Inés Plaza Lazo, the exhibition forms the conceptual core of the festival. Bringing together around 40 artists working across contemporary art, craft, and performative and food-based practices, it approaches soft power as something that can be exercised from below and across borders. Its curatorial choreography—set within an architectural framework developed with Gonzalez Haase AAS—unfolds in nine chapters: Arriving, Coming Together, Listening, Remembering, Imagining, Ritualising, Resonating, Celebrating, Becoming.

Together they trace a process in which cultural and political influence emerges through the conditions that allow people to connect.

This progression follows the detours of Farid ud-Din Attar's epic Conference of the Birds, in which a community of birds leaves certainty behind and travels through a series of valleys in search of the Simurgh—the benevolent bird of Persian mythology symbolising spiritual vastness. The festival borrows this structure as a logic of passage: not toward a predetermined destination, but through uncertainty, desire, loss, memory, relation and transformation.

Alongside the exhibition, Sonnenraum hosts a 48-hour dancefloor, a wide-ranging programme of talks, performances and activations, and Refuge Worldwide will broadcast a 36-hour radio program blurring the lines between day and night.

Participants
Art: Akshita Garud (Two Odd), Alanna Lawley, Anahita Sadighi, Anousha Payne, Berni Searle, Caique Tizzi, Céline Semaan, Dan Lie, Daniel Butcher, Diane Severin Nguyen, Elena Carvajal, Elif Saydam, Enis Maci, Forough Alaei, Hamid S. Neiriz, Hashem Shakeri, Havîn Al-Sîndy, Ian Waelder, Jårg Geismar, Julius Pristauz & Nasanin Dahaghin, Kalpesh Lathigra, Katja Pilipenko, Kitty Doherty, Maria Portilla, Mariana Castillo Deball, Mariuccia Secol, Mehdi Behbudi, Simon Speiser, Slavs & Tatars, SoiL Thornton, Susana AbdulMajid, Tawna, Ushara, and Wenxin Zheng.

Space: Aathirai Valentine, Dieter Detzner, ELOA, Florina Maya Vyas, Frenzy Concepts, Gonzalez Haase AAS, Jérémy Bellina, Laura Angelone, Loan Nguyen, Milena Kling, and Natalie Foti.

Music: Alejandro Mosso, Alexia, Alix Casale, Amir Alexander, Amuleto Manuela, Anahita Sadighi, Ava Rasti, B.BBY, Bruno Schmidt, Calamidades Lola, Camion Bazar, Christine Benz, David Riley, Dean Bryce, DJ Chichi, DJ Dustin, DJ Fart in the Club, douniah, Dracaena, DUMAMA, Duos Duet, eioo, El Congo Allen, Elias L., Fred P, Galcher Lustwerk, Gizem Öz, Hame, Henry Weekes, Hesam Ayat, Jack Murray-Brown, Jaako from Trevor Deep Jr., Julius Steinhoff, Karla Böhm, Katayoun, Kava, Kyurtash, Lakuti, Lb Honne, Lenny Mailleau, Leona, LIL JA, LILI, Luna Ludmila, Marie Lung, Marta Forsberg, Maryisonacid, Matthias Reiling, Mike D, Module One, Moehecan, Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, Mon-Puo, Morgan, Mountain People, Muallem, Myriam, mokeyanju, Obelix, Perera Elsewhere, RAHA, Salar Ansari, Soela, soo, Stretch, Tata Nuo, Tibi Dabo, Tigran, and Viiaan.

Activations, talks, workshops
Ada’s Deli, Adam Fearon, Alexander Jenkin, Alice Hasters, Amba Kohlschmidt, Anahita Sadighi, Anna Marazuela Kim, Berlin Gastro Solidarity Network, Buki Akomolafe, Cate Lartey, Cihan Sinanoğlu, Clubcommission, Cristina Plett, Cynthia Mensah-Neglokpe, Dalad Kambhu, Dalia Maini, Danielle de Picciotto, Daria Suvorova-Konstandin, David Höhne, Dimitri Hegemann, DLD Music School, Dorothea Kerrutt, Edna Bonhomme, Eva Maria Greiderer, Fred P, Fortuna Forest, Ghostpoet, Hanno Hauenstein, Heiko Pfreundt, Heinz “Cookie” Gindullis, Jumoke Adeyanju, Kai Sachse, Karoline Lucks, Kemi Fatoba, Lukas Feireiss, Lutz Henke, Lutz Leichsenring, Marcel Weber, María Inés Plaza Lazo, Monika Branicka, Norman Ohler, Pia von Wersebe, rustcakes, Sinthujan Varatharajah, Sonic Staircase (Guided Sound Journey by Vera), Studio Manuel Raeder.

To learn about the full program, visit Soft Power Festival