Under the Table

by Viron Erol Vert with students of Kunsthochschule Weißensee (Beo Da Silva, Dré Philippens, Léna Serdjebi, Zéna Chite)

As part of Berlin Art Week

Under the Table is a multidimensional installation that reimagines Eastern Mediterranean table cultures as a fragile, cyclical space of destruction, purification, and renewal. A monumental, 7,5-meter-long table intersects the garden of SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, physically inverting perspectives and inviting visitors beneath it to encounter a hidden soundscape and performative rituals. First created for three day festival AMAN AMAN Berlin (12.-14.06.2026), for Berlin Art Week the table will be set again.

Curated by Dafni Rüde and in collaboration with BALKAN RADIKAL & Dalila Daut, for Berlin Art Week the table will be activated through a workshop: Bujrum. Diaspora Spirituality as Care. Bujrum is an open forum for discussion about diaspora, memory, and spirituality as forms of care and resistance. The daily practice of drinking coffee together plays an important part in many Balkan cultures. Through the shared practice of reading coffee grounds, moments of listening, storytelling, and sharing emerge. Between personal stories and collective experiences, a space opens up for questions of belonging, loss, and memory.

On Thursday 10.09.2026at 18:00, Dalila invites guests to a coffee-ground reading, creating a space for reflection, connection, and attentive listening. Afterwards, DJ Da-Da, of Dancing Ambiance fame, will cook up and perform a 90 minute tasting menu of bedroom-acclaimed producers, outernational hits, and dry-aged psychedelica, pressure-cooked with a selection of outlawed additives.

Dalila Daut works at the intersection of art education, research and curatorial practice. Her focus lies on developing participatory, community-based formats situated between institutions, urban spaces and social contexts.

BALKAN RADIKAL is a Berlin-based collective founded in 2023 by the curatorial duo Dafni Rüde and Nataša Vukajlović. Drawing on their shared experiences, memories and conversations about their migrant backgrounds from the Balkans, it is an ongoing project that aims to highlight artistic, socio-cultural and critical approaches from the Balkans and its diaspora.