Literary object dialogs

The result is a collection of texts that is as multi-layered and diverse as the voices of the authors, moving vividly between personal and collective memory.



It is an almost romantic encounter, but one that can just as easily lead to aversion: What is this object to me, who am I to the object, and what can we be to each other? Every observation is based on a relationship. And this begins even before the gaze encounters the object. It begins with the expectation, the psychology of museum architecture, and with entering the museum space, the interaction at the ticket desk and at the entrance, with locating one's own body and individual role - guided by patience, attention, experience and the desire to make an effort.



The invited authors immerse themselves in the rich archives of memory that each object carries within itself: interwoven, contradictory, and always more far-reaching than imagined.



In this way, the objects are given space to open up, beyond art-historical localization and the limitations of canon and provenance. The voices of the authors bring the objects a little closer and open up some of their hidden knowledge for us, their viewers and listeners.


On September 18, 10 of the 12 authors will present their texts in the museum and talk about their literary object dialogs.


Contributing authors


Aida Baghernejad is a freelance journalist, presenter and podcaster. in 2024, she spent four months as a Thomas Mann Fellow in Los Angeles researching how political issues are negotiated in pop cultural discourse in the USA. She lives mostly in Berlin, sometimes in London, and above all on the internet.


*Asal Dardan is a freelance author and translator. Her second book Traumaland was published in January 2025. She also translates works from English into German, including those by Namwal Serpell and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Dardan lives in Berlin and on the Swedish island of Öland.


emet ezell is a poet and typographer based in Berlin. ezell's work revolves around the echo(s) of devotion, loss, destruction and return. ezell's latest expansive artistic work entitled "Destruction Is and Is Not Forever" will be shown in Latvia this summer.


*Ciani-Sophia Hoeder is an online editor at ZDF-Digital, founder of RosaMag, Grimme Online nominee, winner of the Golden Blogger and voted one of the 30 under 30. her work fuses visual, literary and scientific research on social injustices, power imbalances and pop culture.

Emilia Roig is a political scientist, author and one of the most influential voices for social justice, healing and social change in Germany. As a multi-award-winning instigator, she operates at the intersection of political change and personal responsibility.


*Lin Hierse is a writer and journalist. Her texts and columns are published in the taz, Die Zeit and literary journals, among others. Following her debut Wovon wir träumen (2022), her second novel Das Verschwinden der Welt was recently published.


David Odiase is a transdisciplinary artist whose practice operates at the intersections of poetry, performance, film, indigenous technologies and speculative methods. Odiase currently lives in Germany, where he is pursuing a degree in Cultural and Museum Studies.


hn. lyonga is a Black, queer, interdisciplinary artist, poet and curator. In his writing and storytelling, he explores migration issues relevant to colonized and marginalized communities.


Joe Otim Dramiga is an author and neurogeneticist. He runs the science blog Die Sankoré Schriften on SciLogs, the blog portal of Spektrum der Wissenschaft. Joe's poems in English and German have appeared in the poetry anthologies Arriving in the Future - Stories from Home and Exile and Junge Lyrik II.


Lene Albrecht is a writer and lecturer at the European University Viadrina. She likes to write and think in collective contexts, for example as co-author of the collective novel "wir kommen" (2024) on the subject of female* desire.


Mithu Sanyal is a cultural scientist, author, journalist and critic. in 2021, she published her first novel Identitti, which was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and was awarded the Ruhr Literature Prize and the Ernst Bloch Prize 2021.


Sinthujan Varatharajah is a freelance scholar and essayist based in Berlin, where she curates the event series "dissolving territories: cultural geographies of a new eelam". She*er studied political geography and was part of the 11th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art with the research and art installation "how to move an arche".


*Lin Hierse, Ciani-Sophia Hoeder and Asal Dardan are not in Berlin at the time of the reading


WRITING OBJECTS was curated by Celina Baljeet Basra and Isabel Raabe and takes place as part of the artistic research project TALKING OBJECTS LAB.




Project funding: Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion