T:>Works’ arts conference series PerºForm Open Academy of Arts and Activations (POA) returns in 2026, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Singapore and Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin (Gorki), to present POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy. This public Academy reflects on labour, class, cultural difference, and gender in Germany.
Happening on the Labour Day weekend from 29 April to 3 May 2026, POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy is an intersection of exhibition, theatre, literary salon, workshop and talks. Especially noteworthy is the lecture performance of Unser Deutschlandmärchen (Our German Fairy Tale), one of the top ten productions of German theatre from the year 2024.
POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy unpacks the artistic concept of post-migrant theatre in Germany, a term coined by Gorki’s Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff, through the 7th Berliner Herbstsalon of Gorki entitled ЯE:IMAGINE – THE RED HOUSE – Inventories, Interventions, Inventions), a transdisciplinary festival curated by Shermin, which detailed among other topics, the lives of Telefunken female Gastarbeiters (guest workers) who were selected primarily from Turkey to aid the recovery of the post-war economy of Germany.
POA 2026 Fellows are Gorki’s Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff, writer Dinçer Güçyeter, director Hakan Savaş Mican, actress Sesede Terziyan, exhibition dramaturg Erden Kosova, and exhibition designer Alice Faucher. These Fellows will present the programmes in collaboration with Singaporean acclaimed actress Tan Kheng Hua.
An ode to the Gastarbeiters and their lived experiences, POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy contextualises the stories and realities of women migrant workers within the post-migrant society of Germany. Notably, POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy finds a parallel with the lived realities in Singapore, migration, and our own relationship as migrants.
