This Saturday at Motto: RESONANCES OF THE VOICES BEFORE US— Electric Modernism & Material Sound in Post-Independence Ghana. Curated and hosted by @blamekuuks a Ghanaian born curator and designer.

Positioned at the intersection of post-independence cultural sovereignty, analog experimentation, and ancestral memory, this broadcast traces the electric transformation of West African popular sound across the 1970s. As acoustic palm-wine roots and big-band brass gave way to organ-led, psychedelic studio experimentation, musicians across Accra and Kumasi developed a distinct form of electric modernism.

Approaching rare vinyl pressings, independent label archives (Essiebons, Gapophone, Bokoor), and physical ephemera as living historical artifacts, the three-hour session combines continuous playback with live curatorial commentary.

Listen in person from the Motto courtyard in Kreuzberg or tune in online via the live stream.

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 Date: Saturday, 10.10.2026

 Time: 17:00 CET

 Location: Motto Berlin — Skalitzer Str. 68 (Im Hinterhof), 10997 Berlin

 Curator & Host: @blamekuuks

 Broadcast: Streaming live via mottobooks.com

 Format: Live Vinyl Playback, Field Ephemera & Audio Commentary

 Entry: Free / Open access

read me your poetry, I might weep

Thursday Oct. 1
From 7pm

Secret guests (and open stage)

Motto Kreuzberg
Skalitzerstr. 68
10997 Berlin

U1 Schlesi

Every Thursday from now on

More info or ideas and submissions:
berlinevents (at) mottodistribution.com

Saturday June 14, from 4pm @ Motto Berlin

How to Read a Book
Robert Blatt

Books, voice, and miscellaneous musical instruments.
In a performance somewhere between concert and intervention by working continuously with books found on site at Motto Berlin bookstore, Robert Blatt performs scores by the artist experimentally treating books as material and instrument.

Please join us for the opening of Manuel Sékou’s I Lost My Gems exhibition.

22 September 2023
from 7.00pm

Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68
10997 Berlin
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After the heist of historical jewellery and art objects out of the Green Vault in Dresden, the case has been reported worldwide. The reports and narrations around spectacular incident quickly drifted into peculiar vocabulary, provoking projections and prejudices against the city of Dresden and its citizens. The discrepancy between personal experience and conveyed attributions about Dresden do manifest the initial point of the project I LOST MY GEMS. Manuel Sékou– raised in Dresden and the artist behind the venture – directs his perspective back to his hometown and youth within the years of the 2000-10s, to confront dynamics of the inner-German history in relation to his own socialization and thus to carve out dispositions of socio-political patterns of behavior induced by collective uncertainty: interference of adolescence with shadows a collapsed system…Sampling in parallel to the investigations of the Soko Epaulette(special commision) the project seeks for treasures of memory and collects potential pieces of evidence of hidden symptoms of the past in the present.To decode the X-Factor of Dresden beyond the mediated image through the mode of visual language.

https://ilostmygems.net
https://instagram.com/i_lost_my_gems
https://ilostmygems.bandcamp.com

Browse I Lost My Gems here

Join us on Friday September 8 at 7 pm at Motto Berlin for the launch of “Manufacturing Narratives,” the second issue of MAKAN.

MAKAN is a journal of culture and space that is edited and published by Think Tanger, an independent arts organization based in Tangier, Morocco. Its inaugural issue “Informal Utopias” was published in 2020 and established the foundations of MAKAN as a vehicle for critical engagement with contemporary architectural and urban conditions and with academic scholarship emanating from, or focused on exploring, Africa and the Arabic-speaking milieu. 

The second issue “Manufacturing Narratives,” focuses on how interrogating narrativity can provoke fundamental questions about how societies define or choose to accept societal or historical truths in today’s world. Contributors to the issue include: Ala Younis, Ali T. As’ad, Abari Abbassi, A. George Bajalia, Karim Kattan, Karima Kadaoui, Kenza Sefrioui, Lahbib El Moumi, Laila Hida, Maureen Mougin, Mohamed Amer Meziane, Monica Basbous, Nadia Tazi, Sénamé Koffi Agbodjinou, Sonia Terrab, Soufiane Hennani, Yto Barrada.

The event will include presentations by the creative director of Think Tanger, Hicham Bouzid, and the editor of MAKAN Issue #2, Ali T. As’ad. The presentations will be followed by a conversation / Q&A moderated by Berlin-based urban researcher and performance artist Nancy Naser Al Deen. 

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Think Tanger

Motto Books

Dear Friends,

please join us on August 2, 2023 at 7:00pm at Motto Books, Berlin for a conversation with Sandra Peters and Adam Feldmeth to present Peters’ new book Cut Cube.

The book Cut Cube, (2022) results from Sandra Peters’ interest in the graphic interplay between two- and three-dimensional structures. The 11 possible ways to unfold a cube are laid out on white paper, whereas the seven cuts that make it possible to unfold a cube are printed on transparent paper and related to each of the six sides of each flattened cube. Turning pages generates a flow of information to make the viewer aware of the complex interplay between both types of structures. 

The book is published with Motto Books, Berlin/Lausanne. A book signing will follow the discussion.

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Sandra Peters is an artist, writer, and educator based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. In her work she focuses on architecture and urban space. She is working towards a reciprocal integration of sensual, structural, and conceptual factors.

Peters has widely presented her work in Europe, the US, and the United Arab Emirates, including Performing the City at the NYUAD Project Space in Abu Dhabi (2023); Un–folded Cube (landscape mode) at Foyer-LA, Los Angeles (2023); Bilateral, Diagonal, Cubical at the Gallery Aanant & Zoo, Berlin (2012) and participated in the group exhibition Erschaute Bauten. Architektur im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Kunstfotografie at the MAK—Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst/Gegenwartskunst (2011).
She is teaching at New York University Abu Dhabi since 2014 in the Art and Art History Program, where she is Co-program head since 2021.

Adam Feldmeth lives in Los Angeles and Berlin. His work engages the social elasticity of art through situational discourse with those involved in its materialization. Critical contributions have been included at the Luminary Projects, St. Louis, Missouri; Contemporary Art Daily; the MAK Center, Los Angeles; Kunstbibliothek Sitterwerk, St. Gallen, Switzerland; Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; the Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University; and the 53rd Venice Biennale of Art. In 2008, he co-authored, “Nomad Post School,” with Guan Rong and in 2020 “Some Pedagogies of the Southland Institute” with Joe Potts

He is co-director of the Southland Institute in Los Angeles, teaches Film/Media studies at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California, and is a doctoral student at the European Graduate School where he is considering the cobblestone as a mediator of momentum at the confluence of urban space and cinematic montage.

Dear friends,

We are happy to invite you to Cults and Culture on Thursday, July 13th from 7:00 PM, a talk by Alex Head in which the author will discuss his book Ricochet – Cultural Epigenetics and the Philosophy of Change (Ljå Forlag, Oslo, 2021).

Reflecting on discoveries and debates that have occurred in the two years since its publication, artist Alex Head will read from current works in progress to highlight specific aspects within his ambitious book 
Ricochet to discuss the architecture of power.

It is now well documented that cults have been used to disseminate disinformation. For example the extremist cults of MAGA, The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who’s recruitment pipeline has been funded by Big Oil and crypto libertarians in an attempt to overthrow the United States and 
crash their and the world’s economy.

But what about the arts more widely, is there a form of culture that is transparent about its ideology, particularly in today’s hyper-accelerate media vortex? Are all cultural institutions not also in some way cultish? The cult of patriarchy being just one obvious example that transcends both religious and cultural institutions.

Focussing on specific evidence of how cults have been used to spread disinformation and other historical data the artist will discuss the central motif to his work Ricochet, – the Sacred Date Palm Tree – as a expression of the anti-rhizome. Are we, the unwitting public being continuously gaslit by Sacred Date Palm tree’s in the form of neoclassical architecture? And if so, what can we do to review and 
refocus personal and political objectives as users navigate the web architecture of the app?

Join us at Motto Berlin on Thursday, 13th of July for an insightful talk where we will explore the profound themes of Ricochet and run across topics like January 6th, Classical Architecture, White Supremacy, BND Building Berlin, Mental Health, Libertarianism, Bitcoin, Gold Standard, Going Offline, Art, Publishing, Design, Cultural Epigenetics, Memory, Witnessing and Social Media.

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Alex Head

Ljå Forlag

Dear Friends,

We are excited to invite you to the opening of Park 2 INN on Saturday, July 1st from 7PM, a duo exhibition by Louise Verstraete and Rebecca Quix in the presence of Nissan Sunny 1.4LX and a sound installation by Lukas Katzer.

It has been a while since we have seen each other. How are you doing? I’m sorry to call you so early. Holiday schedules. MidDay sMiles. Days go by so fast. I was eating these curly fries and was thinking of you today. Lunch hour at the fuel station.  The connection got lost. My tires were losing pressure. Are you here already? Here is still there. Soon there. 

The exhibition will be on view from July 1, Monday to Saturday 12 to 8 PM until July 31, 2023. This exhibition has been made possible with the support of Flanders State of the Art.
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Louise Verstraete is a multidisciplinary artist working with the medium of textile and the performative power that the medium carries within. Her projects show an interplay between photography, textiles, scenography and performative interventions. Louise holds an MFA in Textile Design from LUCA School of Arts, Belgium and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.   

Rebecca Quix (BE) currently lives and works in Brussels. She holds an MFA from LUCA School of Arts, Brussels (2022) and studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York (2021). 

Dear Friends,

We are happy you invite you to an open-air summer evening with lectures, readings, and a music performance to launch our newest Norient Book Politics of Curatorship on June 29 at Motto Books Berlin from 19:00 onwards.

In essays, academic texts, photo essays, poems, and short comments by 32 writers, artists, journalists, and scholars from all over the world, this volume attempts to encourage different approaches to increase diversity and equality in curatorship within the cultural industry.  

For our Berlin release party, we have invited the Berlin-based curator and book contributor Andrea Goetzke & the activist and DJ Ari Robey-Lawrence for a panel discussion, the musician Tatiana Heuman aka Qeei to play an exclusive music performance, and the sound artist Lendl Barcelos and Norient founder Thomas Burkhalter (both contributors) for remote readings in the lovely courtyard of Motto Books Berlin. Moderated by Carla J. Maier and Philipp Rhensius.

Expect an engaging evening with critical questions, challenging sounds and refreshing drinks. Co-moderated by Norient Books editor and Sound Studies researcher Carla J. Maier and Norient editor and writer/musician Philipp Rhensius.

Dear Friends,

We are excited to invite you to the finissage event of Lena Pozdnyakova’s “Hunting-Gathering” exhibition, featuring live performances by Eldar Tagi, Lena Pozdnyakova, and Stas Shärifullin (HMOT). The evening also marks the release of New r Age, ME003 (Motto Editions) by Eldar Tagi, Lena Pozdnyakova, and Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist & composer Patrick Shiroishi, based in Los Angeles.

Organised by Liza Kin.

Join us on Tuesday, June 27th, at 7:30 PM at Motto Books Berlin.

Eldar Tagi, a multi-instrumentalist and composer originally from Kazakhstan, is now based in Berlin, Germany. His live improvised performances use a range of instruments, including computers, field recordings, analog modular synthesizers, daxophone, guitars, other stringed instruments, found objects, and self-made sound-makers.

Lena Pozdnyakova, an artist, curator, and researcher from Almaty, Kazakhstan, explores the culture-nature dichotomy, the Anthropocene, and the boundary between life and art in her collaborative projects and research. She is also 50% of thezwo duo with Eldar Tagi.

Stas Shärifullin, aka HMOT, is a Basel-based musician, researcher and artist working with sound and decoloniality. Born in Central Siberia, with Bashqort roots, Stas is studying the political potential of various musical and listening practices through live performances, lectures, interventions and sound installations focused on the issues of extractivism, identity-based oppression, collective memory and militant (sonic) ethnography: action-as-research, research-as-action.

We hope to see you at Motto Books on Tuesday, June 27th at 7:30 PM for an exciting evening of live performances and art.