OPEN CALL: Soft Archives

Soft Archives explores how memory takes shape in visual, material and physical processes. How it changes, overwrites and reassembles itself.

We are especially looking for photographic works in a broad and experimental sense, ranging from sketch-like approaches and material studies to filmic fragments and archival explorations. Photography is understood here not only as a means of documentation but as an autonomous medium of memory that translates fleeting moments into images and at the same time shifts them into new horizons of meaning. Memory is mutable, permeable and reconstructive; images can anchor it, distort it or open up new connections. The exhibition explores how visual traces can preserve fragility, shape memory and influence our perception, our actions and our understanding of reality, and invites participants to explore these questions sensorially, materially and conceptually through their works.

Through an open call, students working in artistic or art-related disciplines at Berlin’s universities are invited to develop and realize new works that engage with these thematic concerns.

The exhibition will take place in the former parking structure of Kunstraum Potsdamer Straße—a site that itself resonates as a repository of memory. Entering the space involves a descent from the present into a timeless zone in which artworks generate a distinctive resonance between body, material, and architecture. The exhibition is a collaboration with Prof. Gabi Schillig's class for spatial design and exhibition design – Raumklasse (University of the Arts Berlin). Under the semester theme "Concrete and Feathers",  students will be working in parallel within the subterranean levels of the parking garage, establishing a spatial and conceptual dialogue with the evolving Soft Archives in the gallery space above.

Curation & Project Management Soft Archives : Isa Zappe

________________________________________
Conditions of participation

Students with a focus on photography, moving images or installation-based, material-related approaches are invited to participate.
Deadline: 30 November 2025 

Participation in the following dates is mandatory:
15 January 2026 – 3 p.m. Introductory meeting and tour of the rooms
1–3 May 2026 Exhibition parallel to Gallery Weekend 2026

Further meetings tba