PRESS RELEASE | Launch of the Anniversary Week Programme: “25 Years of Twin Cities Windhoek – Berlin”

Windhoek and Berlin are celebrating 25 years of their partnership as twin cities. To mark the occasion, Kulturprojekte Berlin is organising an anniversary programme from the 17th to the 23rd of November. With more than 30 events, around 40 cooperating partners and over 100 participants from Berlin and Windhoek, the resulting programme will take place all over Berlin and focus on contemporary art, culture, film and music, civil society dialogue, the creative industries, science and archives.

The anniversary week organised by Kulturprojekte Berlin celebrates a partnership that represents an active culture of remembrance and future-orientated collaboration. Anne Schumann and Noah Anderson have curated a programme that is characterised by a large number of collaborations and community perspectives, and generates new spaces for diverse voices tobe heard through the principle of co-curation. lt brings dialogue, culture and civic participation together and gives visibility to underrepresented perspectives. At the same time, music theatre, city tours, exhibitions and film screenings are open to the wider public. Thanks to funding from the Lotto Foundation Berlin, almost all the events are also free. Artistic exchange, transnational productions and developing sustainable networks are the central focus of this anniversary week. lt deals with Germany’s colonial past and its effects in Namibia, reflects on its impact in the present and explores perspectives for a shared future.

Windhoek artist Vitjitua Ndjiharine, who has already worked in Berlin several times, will open the anniversary week by presenting her artistic intervention “Memory Scripts”, which will be displayed prominently on a public building throughout the week. Her work deals with how individual and collective memories overlap and the history of both cities. Another main feature of the programme is the European premiere of the music theatre production “People of Song”, which was developed by a Namibian-German artists collective associated with the theatre organisation Momentbühne and, after its world premiere in Windhoek, will be performed for the first time in Berlin in the Humboldt Forum during the anniversary celebrations. The play combines traditional choral singing with contemporary compositions, and unites music, dance and drama in a single magnificent work of art. Together with singers from “People of Song”, Kulturprojekte Berlin will also host a community singing event in the Genezarethkirche that invites the audience to participate.

Daily city tours by Berlin Postkolonial and deSta – Decolonial City Tour invite the public to explore Berlin and its history with a critical eye. The tours will visit memorial sites and contribute to a dialogue about the present and future of postcolonial remembrance. They will thus open up brand new perspectives on the history of our own city and uncover connections to the history of Namibia.

At SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, the film festival “AFRIKAMERA” will present a night of Namibian films, talks and music. The heart of the festival will be the “WINDHOEK SHORTS”, a selection of contemporary Namibian short films, introduced by Joel Haikali, a director and producer himself. The festival will also feature guests such as the artists Laura Horelli and Hildegard Titus, the producer Theodora Shande and the media artist Christian Zipfel, who will present their own films and VR-projects. At the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, there will be a special Namibia edition of the “Decolonized Glamour Talks” – a performative talk format with guests from Namibia initiated by Lara-Sophie Milagro. Julia Runge, a photographer who lives in Berlin and Windhoek, will present the pop-up exhibition “REFRAME Namibia” in the Photo Gallery Friedrichshain with photography by twelve young photographers from the REFRAME collective from Namibia, which provide very personal views of life in Namibia today.

“Traces of Memory”, an event in the Gropius Bau curated by Kulturprojekte Berlin will explore the theme of archives and ask how the past and present are linked in them. Forensic Architecture, Contemporary And (C&), TheMuseumsLab, urban dialogues and other participating researchers, artists and organisations will present their current work and research projects and discuss sustainable forms of international collaboration. Decolonize Berlin, in cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburg Africa Council, will explore the theme “Reframing Relations” in the Berlin Global Village and bring together civil society actors from Namibia and Germany to discuss what is required for decolonial relations.

In addition, special guided tours of other exhibitions will be offered – such as at the Museum Neukölln, the Museum Treptow and the Humboldt Forum. There will also be many other panel discussions, talks, films, music and participatory projects, such as a podcast for children by BÜCHERALARM. Finally, the Berlin anniversary week will be accompanied by a mobile informative exhibition that provides insights into the shared history of both countries as weil as a look back at the 25-year city partnership, which was developed by SODI e.V., an organisation that specialises in future-oriented educational work.

The celebrations already began with an anniversary week in Windhoek, which took place from the 14th to the 19th of October 2025. The week included an official delegation visit with Kai Wegner, the Governing Mayor of Berlin, and Sarah Wedl-Wilson, Berlin Senator for Culture and Social Cohesion.

The Berlin anniversary programme celebrating “25 Years of Twin Cities Windhoek – Berlin” is being curated and organised by Kulturprojekte Berlin, on the initiative of and in collaboration with the Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery, as weil as a large number of partners. The programme in Windhoek took place in cooperation with the City of Windhoek, the Namibia Institute for Democracy and the Creative lndustry Institute Africa. Made possible by funds from the Lotto Foundation Berlin.

Further information on the anniversary programme can be found at www windhoek­-berlin com.