HAUS FÜR POESIE

Vocations – Reimagining the Lied marked the beginning of the series. In cooperation with the Wiepersdorf Cultural Foundation, the Junge Akademie of the Akademie der Künste, and Heimathafen Neukölln, poets and composers developed new art songs and performative works through collaborative creative processes. During a one-week workshop at Schloss Wiepersdorf, texts and compositions were created in close exchange from the very outset. Subsequently, two salon evenings at the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg opened this creative process to audiences and fellow artists before the resulting works premiered in two concert evenings at Heimathafen Neukölln. The salons provided space for artistic interventions, conversations, and encounters, making the creative process behind the works accessible to the public. Together, the workshops, salons, concerts, and premieres laid the foundation for a transdisciplinary artistic community.

Building on this approach, Vocations – open space was launched in 2024. The series establishes an open platform for experimentation at the intersections of poetry, music, sound, and performance. Its spectrum ranges from classical and contemporary art song to new music, sound poetry, and sound art, as well as singer-songwriter practices, spoken word, and performance poetry. What unites these contributions is an engagement with language as sound, the voice as an artistic medium, and the many ways in which poetry can be experienced through performance.

Several times a year, Vocations – open space brings together up to twenty artists from a wide range of disciplines in the Kuppelhalle at silent green to present current works and new artistic approaches. The evenings offer insights into international developments at the intersections of literature, music, and performance, while also serving as spaces for encounter, exchange, and networking. Following the tradition of literary and musical salons, the programme does not end with the artistic presentations. Over drinks and refreshments, included in the ticket price, artists and audiences come together, forge new connections, and continue the transdisciplinary exchange in an informal setting.

Artists can regularly apply to participate in Vocations – open space through open calls. The series welcomes all artistic practices that engage with poetry through the body, voice, music, and sound. It is explicitly aimed at reaching new and younger audiences, opening up diverse pathways into contemporary poetry beyond traditional genre boundaries.

In 2025, these four evenings took place: June 9, September 30, Oktober 28, December 2

We will provide information here about a new round of Vocations as soon as the dates are set.

Vocations –open space is an event series organised by Haus für Poesie in cooperation with Junge Akademie, Akademie der Künste, silent green Kulturquartier, the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program, Cultural Foundation Schloss Wiepersdorf and in 2025 was funded by the German Capital Culture Fund.