Neue Nationalgalerie is pleased to present the Festival of Future Nows in the iconic Mies van der Rohe building, ten years after the festival’s first edition. From 31 Octoberto 2 November 2025, the museum’s interior and exterior spaces will be transformed into an open field for artistic encounters, experiments, and visions for the future.

The Festival’s History

The first Festival of Future Nows was held in 2014 to mark the conclusion of the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments), a study program led by Olafur Eliasson at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2009 to 2014. Co-directed by Eric Ellingsen and Christina Werner, the Institute explored new approaches to artistic education and research, shaping a generation of artists through an interdisciplinary and experimental practice.

The festival’s inaugural edition took place at Neue Nationalgalerie, prior to the building's extensive renovation. A second edition followed in 2017 at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart. Now, the third edition returns to its original location. Building on its founding vision, the festival presents art as a space for collective thinking, acting, and imagination—exploring how art can raise questions about the future and stimulate imagination for new ways of being.

Third Edition of Festival of Future Nows 2025

The Festival of Future Nows brings together around 100 international artistic positions—ranging from emerging voices to established practitioners. In a densely packed program, performative, experimental, and participatory works open up diverse and unexpected encounters throughout the museum’s indoor and outdoor spaces. Performances, happenings, sound and audio works, choreographies, dance, workshops, and both subtle and large-scale interventions invite active engagement.

Visitors are invited to enter into an open dialogue with artists and fellow guests. Through works that inspire participation, reflection, and shared experience, a space emerges for addressing urgent social and ecological issues, fostering collective agency, and imagining new forms of coexistence. At the heart of the festival is the exchange of ideas and an exploration of the role art can play in this process—ultimately aiming to foster cooperation and articulate visions for and of the future.

Taking place in the architectural icon of Mies van der Rohe, the Festival of Future Nows is an experimental format situated within a major cultural institution. The dynamic interplay between the festival’s artistic program and the museum’s unique architectural qualities creates a charged atmosphere – inviting audiences to experience art as a social and imaginative space for shaping our shared future.

Exhibition Imprint

Choreographed by Klaus Biesenbach, Lisa Botti, Christina Werner, Ricarda Bergmann, Nikola Richolt

A collaboration of the Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and the Institut für Raumexperimente e. V. on initiative of Klaus Biesenbach and Olafur Eliasson.

The realization of the festival is made possible by funds from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds and is supported by the American Academy in Berlin.