instinct #21
__ Open 02-12 April
art by Paul Harfleet
Radical Empathy
*Queer Perspectives on Conflict, Resilience & Connection
Conflict is part of our lives.
How can we live conflicts differently?
Radical Empathy begins with the understanding that empathy is not soft, neutral, or given. It is learned, practiced, and risked.
The exhibition explores queer artistic practices as sites of radical empathy, understood not as passive emotional identification but as a relational and transformative engagement with difference.
Drawing from queer history, progressive ethics of care, and contemporary art practices, “Radical Empathy” examines how queer art creates conditions for empathy that resist assimilation, challenge heteronormative perspectives, and center lived experience as a vital form of knowledge.
Queer artists and collectives frequently work from positions of historical exclusion, using art as a means of survival, connection, and world-building. In this context, “Radical Empathy” moves beyond the notion of simply “feeling for” another; it emphasizes a willingness to remain open to discomfort, to difference, and the possibility of being transformed through encounter.
__ Artists (confirmed)
°Matthias Bade
°Mitro Dylan
°Josch Hoeneß & Tomka Weiß
°Heami Lee
°Paul Harfleet
°Owa Mesa
°Andro Nuci
°Monika Popiel & Paweł Świerczek
°Lars Reimers
°Tejal Shah
__ performance
°Ahmed El Gendy
°Dumama
__ Film Prinz in Hölleland (1993) by Michael Stock
__ workshop/panel discussion
°Lo Höckner
__ collaboration
Schwules Museum Berlin
and Salzgeber Verleih
__ Curation Team
Eric LeRouge
in collaboration with
Neo Seefried &
Kristijan Radakovic
* The exhibition instinct#20 Radical Empathy serves as an artistic reflection on two
we are village projects, Conflict and Resilience and Queer Connect.Bringing these earlier initiatives into dialogue, instinct#20 Radical Empathy revisits their ideas,
processes, and contexts, transforming them into a new curatorial framework that invites renewed interpretation.
__ opening Thursday 2 April - 18:00 -22:00
__ opening performance by performance by Dumama - 18:00
__ Saturday 4/04 - 17:00 performance by Ahmed El Gendy
__ Sunday 5/04 - 16:00-17:00 curatorial tour (EN) with Eric LeRouge & Kristijan Radakovic
__ Monday 6/04 - 14:00-18:00 instinct meets stretch festival (privat event)
__ Friday 10/04 - 19:00-21:00 panel discussion Between Care and Confrontation tba
__ Saturday 11/04 - 16:00-18:00 Beyond Overwhelm – Somatic tools for shifting from individual struggle to a collective one. Workshop with Lo Höckner
__ Saturday 11/04 - 15:00-16:00 curatorial tour (DE) with Eric LeRouge & Neo Seefried
__ Sunday 12/04 - 16:00-17:00 screening Prinz in Hölleland (1993) by Michael Stock.
With the director present, followed by a Q&A.
°° all events are free of charge