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Fun to do the CI, graphics & illustration for the first edition of @softpowerfestival together w/ @carinague

Thank you to @berlinartlover and the team!

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The FIRST AMPHORA
OK- nun also etwas über dieses a Gefäß aka Körper der
Freundschaft- mit wasser gefüllt, wiegt es ca. 11 Kilo-
Gewicht dessen, was wir erben, was wir durchstehen und was wir weitergeben.
Und vor fast 11 Jahren schenkte mir Anahita eine Amphore- diese Amphore: türkisgrüne Glasur, persisch, unregelmassige Patina. Dazwischen Zeit, Berührung, weitere 150 Jahre, Bewegung.

Mit dieser Geste beginnt die Performance. Ein Geschenk wird zu meiner Verantwortung. Ein Gegenstand wird zu einem Körper.
Icj trage also etwas und werde durch sein Gewicht verändert- gegen den Wind zu gehen, zu stolpern und unmittelbar weiter laufen, das Zerbrechliche schützen.
Viele Gänge, dazwischen Zeit und nochmal alles auf neu, nochmal loslassen, weil ich muss, wenn das Freundschaft ist.
Die Amphore trägt eine uralte Geste in die Gegenwart. Zurück an Orte, wo Gefäße nicht nur Wasser aufbewahrten, sondern die Voraussetzungen des Lebens selbst.
Was werd' ich für dich weitertragen, Freund? Weit ertragen, ganz ganz weit, wo der Wind nicht ausgeknipst ist.

FIRST AMPHORA
Performance by Susana AbdulMajid
Soft Power Festival × Berlin Art Week 2026

Thank you
and especially Anahita @berlinartlover and @mi_plaza , for your thoughtful curation, your trust, and the invitation to be part of such a powerful gathering during Berlin Art Week. Thank you Beatrice @sacco.beatrice for taking care and organising so many details precisely.
I encountered extraordinary artists and their practices, and witnessed the care, labour, and collective imagination of a team that made all of this possible. What you created was more than a festival. It was a space for genuine encounters, artistic courage, and solidarity. I owe you a great deal.

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A note on joyful defiance, which if you’ve read my book you’d know is a concept inspired by my grandmothers, and to be Lebanese and to know how to exist despite it all, and for your spirit to grow beyond sadness, anger and despair. Not by-passing this emotion, going through it like we would drive through a tornado or a snow storm, going through it not remaining there, knowing pain so intimately that we have this permission to tease it to make fun of it, to challenge it, and sometimes, by practicing a form of defiance daily, we experience the joy of feeling free. (more on this thought in this week’s letter on my substack, i’ll tie this to readings and anti-colonial philosophies i have encountered)

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#softpower 💛

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At the Soft Power Festival, @hahauenstein moderated a conversation with Payam Sharifi of the art collective @slavsandtatars, @celinecelines, and @havin_u_havin about language as one of the more polite places where powerful people sort insiders from outsiders.

🔗 everythingispolitical.com/readings/the-languages-we-dont-yet-have

Words by EIP Editors and @mi_plaza
Design by @celinecelines

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Thank you @fortuna.forest @caiquetizzi for inviting me to share my work over tea at @softpowerfestival during @berlinartweek, with an ambient live set by @_rachellyn___ 🍃

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Ich glaube das ich keine Erwartungen an den September stelle…
Eigentlich kommt man ja erst wieder rein nach der Sommerpause und ist dann immer überrascht, wie wunderschön dieser Monat ist und wie viele in Berlin los ist.
Ich bin auf jeden Fall jedes Mal so richtig verliebt in diese Stadt in diesem Monat.
Die größte Veränderung war auf jeden Fall, dass ich wieder teilweise bei Berberlin tätig bin.
Wirklich verrückt wie sehr ich mich darüber freue.
Jetzt steht der Herbst vor der Tür oder eigentlich sind wir schon mittendrin, auch wenn es sich noch so sommerlich angefühlt hat und wir in den Herbstferien auch noch mal Sommer erleben dürfen. Hach… bei allem Grusel in der Welt ist es doch schön, wenn man zwischendurch mal so richtig genießen kann.!
Liebe geht raus ❤️

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September fühlte sich an als wären alle wieder back to work, ich auch sehr, v.a. beim Job, gab schließlich 2 Wahlen plus spaßige freelance-work Sachen wie @reeperbahn_festival und @softpowerfestival im Rahmen der @berlinartweek und letztlich schlief ich am ersten Tag des letzten Sommerurlaubs 13 Stunden 😌 und ich glaube das fasst es zusammen.

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The soft cycle of life - a botanical installation focusing on soil, an often overlooked material, yet the origin of every plant, every flower, every cycle of growth. From earth to bare branches, to the first emergence of green and finally into bloom, only to wither and return to where it began. An installation on transformation, impermanence and the beauty of the temporary for @softpowerfestival during @berlinartweek created collectively together with @flowersandmoods @atiso.studio

festival curated by @berlinartlover @mi_plaza @gonzalezhaase_aas

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Anything but subtle, anything but singular, SPICE AS SOFT POWER invites us to ask ourselves what we mean when we say ‘Indian’. Presented at @softpowerfestival, this installation was a part of @berlinartweek 2026.

India.
Five letters with the power to conjure images of tigers, jungle, jasmine, heat, sun salutations, and mountains of textile, colour, and flavour.

Spicy.
Another five letters to sum it all up, right?
Perhaps you’ve already thought about when you last had a good curry. Perhaps you’ve broken into a light sweat at the mere idea of it. At what point did these two words become so interchangeable? At what cost?
These are just two of the questions that SPICE AS SOFT POWER asks us to dip into.

Here we’re offered two journeys: one to taste, one to smell, both to disrupt.

Read about the whole installation, article’s link in our bio

Concept, ideation and execution : @akshitagarud @an_odd_experience
At : Soft Power Festival 2026 by @berlinartlover and @mi_plaza
Creative Support by : @gonzalezhaase_aas
Chef : @c_spice_d
Installation Producer : @kris.eshu.flows
Words by : @damn_dinika

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there were butterflies inside me and butterflies outside me. at some point i stopped asking which were which.

precious encounters. falling in love with new friends, old friends. strangers who somehow felt remembered. people i had known who suddenly became strange and new, just unfamiliar enough to discover again.

intimacy, apparently, has very little respect for time.

being moved by a sunrise yet again. thank god. i hope i never become someone who can look at the sky doing that and feel nothing.

a new rock collection at the bottom of my bag. shells, stones. tiny things I cannot stop bringing home. as if they had appointed me their keeper.

have i become a mouse?

becoming fluent in the languages of lichens and moss. listening to how much can be said by something that barely moves.

chocolate cake. wildflowers. gummies. salt drying on skin. vermouth at that hour when everything begins to glow around the edges. a first kiss.

a whole life made from small proofs.

spilling tears of joy//despair//laughter//grief. pouring even more tears because something felt so good my body needed another language for it.

perhaps i thought movement would carry me somewhere. perhaps it did. perhaps the somewhere was only deeper into my own senses.

altars. offerings. flowers placed somewhere with intention. candles burned down to nothing.

feeling fear. shedding fear. realizing these are not opposites but the same movement at different points in time.

mush + slop + mush + slop.
remembering not everything beautiful arrives beautifully.
 heartbreak… feeling it raw. understanding how it complicates a city.
building and inhabiting my own laboratory. learning that paying attention does not always require understanding.

the love in my heart will burn for centuries.
this i know.

dancing inside a blue bubble. being a kid again without becoming who i was.
journeying inward until, strangely, the whole outside world seemed to widen.

and somewhere in all of it, cracking open.

maybe wonder has been arriving all along. tomorrow it will be at your doorstep again, wearing some ordinary disguise.

i hope you remember to say hello. i hope i remember to say hello.

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In focus : The Menu + The Decor of the installation

Anything but subtle, anything but singular, SPICE AS SOFT POWER invites us to ask ourselves what we mean when we say ‘Indian’. Presented at @softpowerfestival, this installation was a part of @berlinartweek 2026.

India.
Five letters with the power to conjure images of tigers, jungle, jasmine, heat, sun salutations, and mountains of textile, colour, and flavour.

Spicy.
Another five letters to sum it all up, right?
Perhaps you’ve already thought about when you last had a good curry. Perhaps you’ve broken into a light sweat at the mere idea of it. At what point did these two words become so interchangeable? At what cost?
These are just two of the questions that SPICE AS SOFT POWER asks us to dip into.

Here we’re offered two journeys: one to taste, one to smell, both to disrupt.

Read about the whole installation, article’s link in our bio

Concept, ideation and execution : @akshitagarud @an_odd_experience
At : Soft Power Festival 2026 by @berlinartlover and @mi_plaza
Creative Support by : @gonzalezhaase_aas
Chef : @c_spice_d
Installation Producer : @kris.eshu.flows
Words by : @damn_dinika

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