From Northern Norway, Nordrom Kunst looks at Berlin as one of its European mirror cities, a place where contemporary art meets memory, public space and the urban fragment.

Nordrom Kunst is rooted in Northern Norway, with a particular focus on Tromsø, the Arctic and the cultural landscapes of the North. At the same time, the project also looks toward selected European cities as points of connection: places where contemporary art, urban life and cultural memory continue to produce meaningful conversations.

Berlin is one of these cities.

From 1 to 3 May 2026, Gallery Weekend Berlin returns for its 22nd edition, bringing together 50 galleries across 66 locations, with more than 80 artists from over 30 countries. The event remains one of the most important moments in the European contemporary art calendar: not only because of its scale, but because of the way it allows the city itself to become part of the exhibition experience. Galleries, streets, public spaces and temporary encounters form a wider map of artistic attention.  

For Nordrom Kunst, Gallery Weekend Berlin is not simply an event to list, but a moment to read through a more specific lens: fragments, memory, body, material traces and public visibility.

One of the most compelling positions in this direction is Yuji Agematsu at Galerie Buchholz. His work Zip: 01-01-2024–12-31-2024 consists of small compositions made from daily detritus collected in the streets of New York and arranged in cigarette pack cellophane wrappers. There is something quiet, almost diaristic, in this gesture: a year of urban life held through fragments, debris and attention. It is a practice that transforms what is normally overlooked into a precise archive of presence.

Yuji Agematsu. Zip: 01-01-2024–12-31-2024, 2024 (detail). Mixed media in cigarette pack cellophane wrapper. Photo Reggie Shiobara. Courtesy of Yuji Agematsu and Galerie Buchholz.

At ChertLüdde, Petrit Halilaj brings a different but equally powerful sense of memory and transformation. His project Syrigana involves charred and graffitied steel shipping containers connected to an opera production in Kosovo that was attacked shortly before its premiere. In the context of the gallery, these damaged materials become more than traces of violence: they become a space of resistance, gathering and shared memory.  

Petrit Halilaj, Syrigana , 2025. Charred and Graffitied steel shipping containers housing “Syrigana” props. Courtesy of ChertLüdde, Berlin and Petrit Halilaj. Photo: Esad Duraki

Another work that resonates strongly with Nordrom Kunst’s interest in environment, matter and witness is Nida Sinnokrot’s Water Witnesses, presented through carlier | gebauer. The press material describes the work as an ongoing series made with metal pipes, fittings, clay vessels and found objects. Even before entering a deeper reading of the exhibition, the title itself suggests a relation between water, infrastructure, memory and testimony, themes that feel particularly relevant to a platform attentive to landscapes, territories and ecological imagination.  

Nida Sinnokrot, from the series Water Witnesses, 2020 – ongoing. Metal pipes and fittings, clay vessels, found objects various dimensions. Courtesy of the artist and carlier | gebauer, Berlin/Madrid. Photo © Andrea Rossetti.

The body also appears as a site of tension and duration. At PSM, Berni Searle’s Light, as a feather brings together works from 2001 and 2025, using materials such as sugar, feathers and flour to address labour, migration and identity through the body. 

Berni Searle, Hazel (peek). From the ‘Sugar Girls’ series, 2025. Archival pigment ink on Baryta paper, 150 X 200 cm. Courtesy of the artist and PSM, Berlin. Image: Berni Searle.

At EBENSPERGER, Göksu Kunak’s REMAINS treats time as a raw material, with performers moving through the space and leaving traces of gesture, effort and presence. In both cases, the exhibition space becomes a field where the body records histories that are not only personal, but social and political.  

Göksu Kunak, Spillage (installation, mixed media), 2026. At Van Abbe Museum as a part of Make Some Noise – Desire. Stage. Change curated by Zippora Elders (MK90714). © Max Kneefeld.

Beyond the galleries, one of the most interesting gestures of this edition is Display, Pause, Repeat, the window exhibition at KaDeWe. From 27 April to 9 May, ten display windows of the iconic department store become a 24/7 exhibition, with works by artists including David Byrne, Hanne Darboven, Simon Denny, Leila Hekmat, Ken Lum, Sophie Reinhold and others. This public-facing project expands the idea of where contemporary art can appear: not only inside galleries and museums, but also in the everyday visual language of the city.  

For Nordrom Kunst, this is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2026: the possibility of seeing the city as an extended exhibition space. Berlin becomes a map of fragments, bodies, memories and public surfaces.

From Northern Norway, we look at Berlin not as a centre to imitate, but as a mirror city,  one of several European points through which Nordrom Kunst follows the movements of contemporary art across places, climates and cultural contexts.

In this sense, Gallery Weekend Berlin is not only a weekend of exhibitions. It is a reminder that contemporary art often begins with attention: to what remains, to what is damaged, to what is displayed, to what moves through the body, and to what a city chooses to make visible.

Gallery Weekend Berlin 2026
1–3 May 2026
Berlin, Germany

Official website: https://www.gallery-weekend-berlin.de/
Instagram: @galleryweekendberlin

Images and press materials courtesy of the Press Office of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2026. All images are reproduced for editorial purposes only. Credits and copyrights remain with the respective artists, galleries, photographers and rights holders, as indicated in the official press materials.