Soft Power is a new multidisciplinary festival staged at Haus der Visionaere, Am Flutgraben 2, 11–13 September 2026. It pairs a curated exhibition with a continuous 48‑hour dancefloor, live performances, talks and workshops. The project is organised by Berlin gallery owner and curator Anahita Sadighi with curator and critic María Inés Plaza Lazo, in cooperation with Berlin Art Week.
The exhibition and the music programme are conceived as one choreography. Sadighi describes the project simply:
"Das Festival entsteht ganz bewusst aus einer weiblichen Perspektive." — Anahita SadighiThe line‑up and the selection of works are meant to complicate the idea of influence — soft power — by showing how cultural practices build collective agency.
Over 130 contributors move through nine thematic chapters: arrival, gathering, listening, remembering, imagining, hospitality, ritual, resonance and becoming. In the gallery spaces visitors will find contemporary and historical works that tie material histories to political questions. Artists include Mariana Castillo Deball, Diane Severin Nguyen, Ian Waelder and TAWNA, among others.
Music runs through the programme. A dedicated sunlit room becomes a 48‑hour dancefloor across the weekend; sets move from afternoon to deep night and back again. The festival also schedules concerts inside the exhibition halls — Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, Mon‑Puo, Ava Rasti, Ghostpoet and others perform in more concentrated live formats.
Talks and public sessions link the cultural programme to concrete city politics. Events with Clubcommission representatives, the DLD Music School and a panel featuring Dimitri Hegemann address nightlife as infrastructure. A community radio by Refuge Worldwide carries discussions beyond the venue.
Soft Power aims to be more than a one‑off. Organisers describe it as a biennial project that seeks depth over scale, and a practical rehearsal in shared cultural practice here in Berlin.
