From 2 to 4 October 2026, five museums invite visitors to discover their current exhibitions, diversity, history, sparkle, and art through family-friendly and creative hands-on activities.

Visitors can create objects related to the former GDR, waving cats, coconut pendants for exploring the world, self-portraits and nature prints, PLAYMOBIL buttons and Art Nouveau cards, as well as DIY mirror balls, collages, and woven pieces.

A joint program by the Weserburg, Focke-Museum, Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Syker Vorwerk – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, and Übersee-Museum.

Program at the Weserburg:

During the final weekend of the exhibition Anys Reimann. Mirrorball, the Weserburg invites visitors to celebrate diverse identities and senses of belonging by creating their own collages and DIY disco balls. Inspired by the collection exhibition So wie wir sind, visitors can also draw portraits on a variety of materials.

Hands-on activity times:
Friday, 2 October 2026, 4–8 pm
Saturday, 3 October 2026, 10 am–3 pm
Sunday, 4 October 2026, 3–8 pm

From 2 to 4 October, the Weserburg and its Centre for Artists’ Publications will also be represented at the Forum am Wall (Central Library) from 10 am to 6 pm. Everyone interested is invited to find out more about this department of the museum as well as more than 40 archives in Bremen.

At the storytelling café Weaving Histories, Stitching & Art-Cycling with Claudia A. Cruz, participants use textile techniques while sharing stories about unity, plural memories, and challenges to democracy. With Nicole Giese-Kroner, Lena Prötzel, and the team of Demokratiezentrum Land Bremen.

At 5 pm, there will also be an art talk with artist Min Duc Pham in the exhibition The Way We Are. The conversation will focus on the post-reunification generation, plural forms of remembrance and visions of the future, as well as images of Germany following the state elections.

About Community Art Night:
Once a month, the Project space at the Weserburg becomes an open workshop for creating, exchanging ideas, and experimenting together. On Thursdays from 4 to 8 pm, it becomes a space for people to meet and connect. No previous experience is required. Between 4 and 6 pm, visitors can also explore the current exhibitions. Short tours and conversations with people from Bremen’s urban community and the museum offer different perspectives on selected works and the themes of the exhibitions.

In cooperation with Syker Vorwerk – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst and Demokratiezentrum Land Bremen.

How can art help give us courage? During the fall break, the Sustainable Futures project invites children and young people to explore this question together with artists and art educators: What gives us courage? How can art reach people and have a positive impact on our surroundings?

Together, participants develop sustainable ideas and products that make art accessible to a diverse audience and open up new perspectives on the exhibitions. The focus is on painting walls both inside and outside the museum. Participants will even create a collaborative artwork for the upcoming exhibition Better Together! Aase & Poul Gernes.

Participation is designed for four to seven days. Together, participants will discover artworks at the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, make music, and visit the nearby KlimaWerkStadt. The project brings together art, sustainability, and inclusive approaches to art education. Parents, caregivers, and friends are also warmly invited to the unveiling of the wall artwork on 14 November 2026 at 3 pm. Admission is free.

Workshop led by Sirma Kekeç with Yekbûn Sincar, Anita Okoro, and Elfin Açar.

Sustainable Futures is a cooperation between the Weserburg, Yekmal e.V., and KlimaWerkStadt Bremen. Funded by the Museum macht stark program of the Deutscher Museumsbund as part of the federal initiative Kultur macht stark. Bündnisse für Bildung.

Register with Lena Prötzel at proetzel@weserburg.de by 8 October.

At the invitation of the Bremen Alliance for German-Czech Cooperation, Vratislav Maňák comes to the Weserburg as part of queer.lit! The author will read from his latest book and discuss it with Daniel Schmidt, Second Chairman of the Bremen Alliance.

About the book:

It is not only Ludwig Wittgenstein, but also Didier Eribon, Claudio Magris, and many others who accompany Vratislav Maňák as he explores male homosexuality in contemporary Central Europe and returns to its sexual roots. He demonstrates that themes commonly associated with the lives of gay men can also reflect experiences shared by wider society. Why are we aroused by breaking a taboo? How do we experience our bodies? And where are the boundaries of masculinity?

Vratislav Maňák searches for answers in seven nuanced texts combining sociological reportage with the literary essay. In the process, he visits places that can be described as gay spaces, including locations in Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest.

Vratislav Maňák creates a multifaceted panorama of gay lives beyond stereotypical ideas. His essays invite readers to reconsider identity, desire, and culture with openness and curiosity.

About the author:

Vratislav Maňák is a Czech writer and journalist from western Bohemia who teaches journalism and creative writing at Charles University in Prague. Two of his books have so far been published in German translation by Karl Rauch Verlag: the short story collection Der Tod der alten Jungfrau (2023) and, most recently, the essay collection Mit Wittgenstein in der Schwulensauna.

A cooperation between Literaturhaus Bremen, the Bremen Alliance for German-Czech Cooperation, and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.

On this evening at the Weserburg, pianist Claudia Janet Birkholz and Beatles expert Matthias Höllings explore the Beatles and their connections to the musical avant-garde. Live performances of works by Bunita Marcus, Luciano Berio, John Cage, Alvin Lucier, and Per Nørgård reveal different connections to the Beatles. As in all events in the Let’s Talk Music series, live music, conversation, and listening examples come together to create an entertaining and insightful journey of musical discovery.

During the conversation, Matthias Höllings discusses how the Beatles increasingly moved away from conventional song structures and began using the recording studio itself as a creative instrument. Tape loops, sound collages, reverse effects, and electronic sound manipulation became elements of a new musical language whose influence can still be felt today.

Listening examples from well-known Beatles songs illustrate how experimental ideas found their way into pop music—and how the Beatles, in turn, inspired composers. At the grand piano, Claudia Janet Birkholz brings this dialogue between pop music and New Music to life through a selection of works.

Tickets available in advance at nordwest-ticket.de and at the box office.

About the participants:

Matthias Höllings is the former press spokesperson for Bremen’s Stadthalle / ÖVB-Arena and the author of short stories about his encounters and experiences with prominent personalities. With his extensive Beatles collection and as a co-founder of the Beatles Museum in Hamburg, he is one of Germany’s recognized Beatles experts.

Claudia Janet Birkholz studied piano in Bremen and has since taught piano and New Music at the University of the Arts Bremen. She has performed at numerous festivals and with various ensembles. Since 2012, she has been Chair of realtime – forum neue musik and Artistic Director of the realtime festival in Bremen. She initiated the Let’s Talk Music format, which has brought together guests from the fields of music and academia since 2015.

The event is a cooperation between realtime – forum neue musik e.V. and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.

Much more than we may realize, “invisible” normative ideas often restrict us. This applies both to ideas of the “right way to live” (heteronormativity) and the “right way to write.”

The four open sessions of Queer Writing – Against the Norm! (29 March, 7 June, 23 August, and 25 October, each from 1 to 5 pm) invite participants to question and subvert these norms and conventions through writing—and, in doing so, to discover writing as an empowering and resistant form of expression. Participants can contribute to a queer alphabet (“Queer from A–Z”) or follow other writing prompts, including their own. During and after the writing sessions, there will be opportunities to exchange ideas, read texts aloud, ask questions, and support one another.

Participants can also draw inspiration from the Weserburg itself—including works in the collection exhibition So wie wir sind, from Murat Önen’s Moving Pile under the Blue Sky (2022) to Zoe Leonard’s queer political manifesto I want a president (1992).

The four open workshop sessions are led by Bremen-based queer author Jutta Reichelt and are open to all queer people, regardless of background or writing experience. Everyone who enjoys writing and exchanging ideas in a group is warmly invited to join. Participants can attend one or several sessions without prior registration.

About the author:

Jutta Reichelt (born 1967) lives in Bremen and works as a writer and initiator of stories. She writes novels, short stories, and literary essays, blogs about writing stories, and leads writing workshops. Her writing has received several awards. In 2001, she received the Würth Prize of the Tübingen Poetics Lectureship, with Herta Müller delivering the laudatory speech. Her novel Wiederholte Verdächtigungen was published by Klöpfer & Meyer (Tübingen) in 2015, followed in 2020 by the literary portrait collection Blaumeier oder der Möglichkeitssinn (Bremen). In 2020, she received the literature project grant of Bremen’s Senator for Culture for her work on Mein Leben war nicht, wie es war. The novel was published by Kröner Verlag in 2024.

A cooperation between Literaturhaus Bremen, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Queeraspora e.V., Stadtbibliothek Bremen, and Rat&Tat–Zentrum für queeres Leben.

Who tells the story of eastern Germany—and whose perspectives continue to shape our image of the region today? For a long time, the history of German reunification was discussed primarily as an East-West narrative. Other power structures, including racism, antisemitism, and sexism, were often left out. The experiences of people with migration histories, Black East Germans, the children of former contract workers, and other marginalized groups rarely became part of public memory.

Katharina Warda, Marieke Reimann, and Nhi Le bring together three influential voices of the East German post-reunification generation who expand and reassemble these narratives. They discuss eastern Germany as a plural space of experience—shaped by transformation, far-right and racist violence, but also by solidarity, democratic engagement, and resistance.

Together, they discuss which gaps continue to shape debates about eastern Germany today, how our understanding of the post-reunification period changes when previously marginalized perspectives move to the center, and which narratives a plural and solidaristic society needs today—after reunification and after the elections.

Moderated by Klaas Anders

As part of the globale° Festival and the accompanying programs of the exhibitions The Way We Are at the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst and Die Kids sind nicht alright! at Syker Vorwerk – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst.

A cooperation between globale°, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, the DFG Research Training Group “Contradiction Studies” at the University of Bremen, Syker Vorwerk – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Arbeitnehmerkammer Bremen, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Bremen, and Rosa-Luxemburg-Initiative Bremen. Funded by Demokratiezentrum Land Bremen as part of the federal program Demokratie leben!.