Annika Kahrs – WINNER

Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin

Exhibition documentation, 2025

This series documented Annika Kahrs’s exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, the most extensive presentation of her work to date. The commission focused on video and sound installations staged in the East Wing, passageways and Forum, as well as live performances, tracing how Kahrs uses music, instruments and acoustic situations – from museum spaces to public sites – to test the boundaries of what is commonly understood as music and to reveal its social, cultural and political roles.

Exhibition text by Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart

Berlin-based artist Annika Kahrs presents the most comprehensive selection of her works to date at Hamburger Bahnhof, exploring the intersection of art and music. Kahrs investigates the cultural and social functions of music: in an abandoned church in Lyon, at the parade of a cross-generational orchestra in an Italian village or in Berlin department stores.

The exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof creates resonant spaces through video and sound installations in the East Wing and historical passageways, as well as live performances “For Two To Play On One” (2012) in the Forum Hamburger Bahnhof, continuously surprising visitors as they move through the museum. The exhibition features more than ten video works, sound installations, and performances from the past 15 years, displayed in selected locations throughout Hamburger Bahnhof, at Musikinstrumenten-Museum and in public space.

Annika Kahrs (born 1984 in Achim, Germany) explores the boundaries of what is commonly understood as music in her artistic practice. Her performances, films, and sound installations highlight the significance of music and sound—acoustic information—within various social, cultural, and political structures.