Table Tennis, Performances, Screening and Music
Spätschicht x Pop-Kultur Festival
With Queer Ping Pong, Jimmy Robert’s Class, Sveamaus, Team Ping Pong, Meg10 and Wa22ermann
© Studio Pandan
To kick off our new event series Spätschicht, we’re teaming up with Pop-Kultur Festival to present a live programme featuring free concerts, performances and screenings. Spätschicht x Pop-Kultur Festival is co-curated by Yeşim Duman, an independent music curator specialising in pop and club culture.
It’s not summer without music, art and Queer Ping Pong: this participatory format combines table tennis with queer club culture and invites beginners and experts alike to play on six ping-pong tables on the outdoor area of Gropius Bau. Designed as a performative open-air installation for the Pop-Kultur Festival, Çaystube – Spill the Tea makes room for tea, talk and gossip as well as queer, decolonial and post-migrant togetherness. At the same time, visitors can enjoy a DJ set by artist and author Sveamaus outside on Florentina Holzinger’s Halfpipe, while Jimmy Robert’s class (UdK Berlin) presents interpretations of Yoko Ono’s instructions from her book Grapefruit in the atrium, foyer and on the first floor. DJ and Hoe_mies founder Meg10 will take over the halfpipe stage with a set combining rap, RnB and electronic music. Inside, the Gropius Bau cinema will be brought to life by the fictional docu-soap Le Ping Pong d’Amour, created by and featuring Team Ping Pong, before Berlin rapper Wa22ermann rounds off the evening with an open-air concert.
Spätschicht – Live-Programm am Gropius Bau is a monthly series of free events with an interdisciplinary programme ranging from concerts and talks to film screenings, book discussions and DJ sets. Sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, experimental and always open to clashing – a space to discover new things and shift perspectives.
This year’s edition of the six-day Pop-KulturFestival for music, readings, talks and art is taking place from 25 to 30 August in the silent green Kulturquartier and nearby clubs as well as on the Kulturbrauerei grounds.
Yeşim Duman is a curator of the Pop-Kultur Festival who works across disciplines and in collaborative projects. A particular focus is her work as a music curator specialising in pop and club culture, which enables her to integrate a variety of cultural and musical influences into her projects. Through participatory formats such as the Çaystube, Queer Chess Club and Queer Ping Pong, Duman creates inclusive spaces that overcome the apparent contradictions between play, discourse and music. These participatory projects are central to Duman’s work and are intended to mobilise communities and promote dialogue, just like on a ping-pong table.
Pop-Kultur is a place for exchange, ideas and encounters – a hyphen between artists’ perspectives and the society they engage with. First launched in 2015, the festival returns for 2025 in a fully live edition on the grounds of the Kulturbrauerei and at our new locations Silent Green, Club Humboldthain and more. In addition to numerous concerts, the programme includes talks, emerging talent programmes and collaborative projects that create further points of connection and offer a platform for experimentation. More information and full programme at www.pop-kultur.berlin
Save the Date: We are looking forward to the next Spätschicht editions with Volksbühne on 3 July and Creamcake on 7 August!
During the event, photographs and video recordings may be made in which you may be recognisable. By attending, you consent to these recordings being used to communicate the event or exhibition.