Mapping Sounds in Exile Festival 2025

A Festival for Sonic Resistance, Queer and FLINTA Empowerment, and Transnational Connection

Presented by the Goethe-Institut im Exil and the Berlin School of Sound on July 2nd, 3rd, and 5th at Kunsthaus ACUD, Berlin-Mitte.

The second edition of Mapping Sounds in Exile unfolds across three days of concerts, performances, DJ sets, film, a listening session, and a professional workshop. Bringing together a diverse range of artists from Algeria-Germany, Denmark-Iran, Ukraine, Lebanon, Syria and beyond: Acidfinky, Chikiss, DONBASGRL, Hassandra, Anna Sharifi, Nour Sokhon, The Darvish. The festival explores themes of memory, resistance, transformation, and belonging through sound. It merges electronic composition, sound art, club and DJ culture, performance, and cinematic storytelling into genre-defying artistic expressions that resonate far beyond borders.

At its core, the festival centers listening as a political and connective practice. For many participating artists, exile and displacement are lived experiences—and sound becomes a powerful tool to process, remember, resist, and reconnect. Musical traditions carried from home are expanded and transformed through new contexts and personal journeys.

Mapping Sounds in Exile is not only a festival but a platform for transnational solidarity and artistic resilience. With a strong focus on amplifying FLINTA and queer voices, this year’s edition highlights artists who some are also curators, community organizers, and founders of empowering initiatives such as the BLVSH Collective, ADIRA Party, and Critical Queer Solidarity e.V. These platforms foster safer spaces, nurture collective strength, and celebrate queer and feminist creative practices.

A highlight of the program is the screening of Queer Exile Berlin, the third installment in Jochen Hick’s documentary trilogy on queer life in Berlin, following Out in East Berlin (2013) and My Wonderful West-Berlin (2017). The film intimately portrays the lives of six queer individuals navigating exile in Berlin today. Additionally, the Touring Artists workshop Working as a Freelancer in Music provides practical guidance for independent musicians.

The festival’s sonic spectrum spans from avant-pop, synth-pop, electroacoustic textures, immersive field recordings, ambient, industrial, noir jazz, to folkloric elements and deep bass. Expect emotionally charged storytelling, cinematic atmospheres, intimate listening sessions, raw and ritualistic performances, and a unique blend of DIY, vinyl-only DJing—where deep embodiment meets the dancefloor.

Mapping Sounds in Exile is more than a music festival: it is a space of remembrance and reconnection, a celebration of artistic innovation shaped by rupture and new beginnings. It maps not only geopolitical fault lines but also the resilient, transnational soundscapes of artists who continue to reimagine belonging through their work.