SOMA Exhibition & Festival 2026

Two halls, one passage. A contemplative journey through the work of seven artists. The place where you look and a space for performance.
About this Event

SOMA Happiness as anaesthesia.

THE CONCEPT

Dystopia as a lens on the present.
SOMA takes its name from the drug in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World: a state-issued euphoriant that erases every form of suffering in exchange for social stability. Read alongside Orwell's 1984 - the source of Eric Oder's previous work, Memory Hole - dystopian literature becomes a key for reading the present.

Control today no longer works through fear, but through pleasure.
Where Orwell described the manipulation of truth and the rewriting of history, Huxley described the opposite, mirror mechanism: anaesthesia as a form of power. SOMA stages the question that follows. Faced with a flow of events that outpaces our capacity to process them, the mind defends itself by dimming thought - and that dimming is already a form of anaesthesia. If dystopia anaesthetises, ritual re-sensitises.
For two weeks SOMA takes over two halls of Kunstfabrik HB55, a former margarine factory in Berlin-Lichtenberg. One hall becomes a temporary art gallery: a contemplative journey through works by different artists, across graphics, photography, sculpture, masks and installation. The other is a space for live performance and workshops. The programme runs across two weekends, arced from anaesthesia through distortion to awakening.
Two halls, one passage
Two ground-Corazón de Robota, Electronic Anarchy - DIY synths (26 July); Aumary art gallery: a contemplative journey through the work of seven artists - the place where you look. The other is a space for live performance, ritual and workshops - the place where you take part. Between them runs a single arc: from anaesthesia, through distortion, to awakening.

Exhibition (Mon-Thu 16:00-22:00 + Sat-Sun 10:00-00:00)
Durd · Liliana Lietz · Luca Arcamone · Claudia Virginia Vitari · Leon Emanuel Blanck · Fade Out Label · Valentina Berthelon
Live & performances
23 Jul · Pareal, ritual opening · Luca Arcamone feat. Marta Scherillo, ritual dance (starts at 20:00)
24 Jul · Coquinati feat. Casual Treatment (starts at 21:30)
25 Jul · Bam Bam's Boogie · Corazón de Robota (starts at 21:30)
31 Jul · MATTAM (starts at 21:30)
1 Aug · Marco Bruno feat. Pareal · Eric Oder · Lucio Vidal (starts at 21:30)

Workshops
Corazón de Robota, Electronic Anarchy - DIY synths (26 July)
Aum Garden Project, Sound Ritualism, shamanic sound-healing (30 July)