As part of our anniversary exhibition, Why We Do What We Do, we warmly invite you to Performing Transformation, a conversation between Kapwani Kiwanga and Carolin Köchling, this Thursday, October 9 at 7 pm.

Kapwani Kiwanga and Carolin Köchling will engage the generative potential of transformation, and the multiple shapes of the performative throughout Kapwani Kiwanga‘s practice. Her work stresses the ways nature is traveling through time and space, where it continuously witnesses our human history in all its breadth; and the ways societal structures and human made objects act as agents that are imbued and shaped by their makers. These mutable forms, narratives, and perceptions carry the potential of a generative being in the world, as well as practices of resistance.

Since working together on Kapwani Kiwanga‘s exhibition A Wall Is Just A Wall at The Power Plant in 2016, Kapwani Kiwanga and Carolin Köchling have been in dialogue across various occasions. Most recently within the context of the symposium, A Coincidence of Wants, the Shape of Value, held in conjunction with Kapwani Kiwanga’s installation in the Canada Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennial, curated by Gaëtane Verna.

This is Kapwani Kiwanga’s first public conversation in Berlin since relocating her practice to the city a year ago.

Kapwani Kiwanga (b. Hamilton, Canada) is a French and Canadian artist, working in Paris and Berlin.
Kiwanga studied Anthropology and Comparative Religion at McGill University in Montreal and Art at l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Awards include: the 2025 Joan Miro Prize (ES), Zurich Art Prize (CH) in 2022, Marcel Duchamp Prize (FR) in 2020, as well as the Frieze Artist Award (USA) and Sobey Art Award (CA) both in 2018. In 2024 she represented Canada at the 60th International Venice Art Biennale with her project “Trinket”.
Solo exhibitions include the forthcoming Fondation Joan Miro (ES), Copenhagen Contemporary (DK); Serralves Foundation, Porto (PT); Bozar, Brussels (BE); Remai Modern, Saskatoon (CA); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (DE); Capc, Bordeaux (FR); MOCA, Toronto (CA); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH); New Museum, New York (USA); Haus der Kunst, Munich (DE); The Power Plant, Toronto (CA); South London Gallery, London (UK) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (FR) among others.

Carolin Köchling is an art historian and curator. Since 2023 she has been Adjunct Curator at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Project. Previously, she was Associate Curator at Large at Gropius Bau in Berlin (2022–24), Nuyten Dime Curator at Large and head of the curatorial department at The Power Plant in Toronto (2016–22) and held curatorial positions at Schirn Kunsthalle and Städel Museum in Frankfurt (2010–15). She has curated exhibitions at Sesc Pompeia, São Paulo (2020) and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2017), and was part of the curatorial team for the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2019). She studied Art History and Literature at Freie Universität Berlin and Università Roma Tre in Rome.