XPOSED XPANDED
Cinema
Performances
For the 20th anniversary, we re-invite filmmakers and artists who have contributed to previous editions to re-imagine, re-interpret, or re-stage their cinematic works as interactive performances. Touching on the concept of “expanded cinema”, the program re-thinks the cinema room as a space for interactivity and performativity, beyond passive audienceship/relationship with a film.
I Can Hear Their Whispers
SJ Rahatoka
FRI 29th May - 20:30
I Can Hear Their Whispers is an interactive performance between a filmmaker, the characters in his films, and the audience. He believes that they continue to exist beyond the screening, in their own universe somewhat parallel to ours. At times, he feels he can hear them whispering.
In Volana’s Eclipse (XPOSED 2023), performed by dancers Kalil Bat and Djibril Sall, Volana collapses into a hole and is transformed by the grace of Tia’s movements, the Spirit who saves them on the dance floor. Kao, the wounded pole dancer of Beyond the Golden Line (XPOSED 2024), also interpreted by Kalil, is transported to an eternal Soul Train where his ancestors dance with him and reveal his radiance. Swan, the flamboyant visionary of All the Colors of a Swan (an upcoming film), creates his own queer and Afrofuturistic interpretation of the ballet Swan Lake. In this interdimensional dance ritual combining film clips, archives from the 1970s, and live performance, SJ seeks to honor his characters and the people who inspired them, summon them to the audience, and allow them to lead us astray.
And then they appear
Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau | Jao Moon
FRI 29th May - 20:30
And then they appear is a performative installation that emerges from the intersection of the video performances My Jesus was Black / My Virgin was Barbie (Jao Moon, 2020) and La Virgen del Inmaculado Corazón (Simon(e) J. Paetau, 2025), in order to reimagine Marian imagery from Colombian popular culture through a queer and non-binary perspective. The work places the body on a threshold between the sacred, the monumental, and the vulnerable, as a site of apparition, transition, and transformation. Two imaginaries converge in this work: on the one hand, the scene of noli me tangere (the gesture in which Jesus asks for distance without rejecting, inviting one not to cling to the earthly body but to another form of presence), which inspires Moon’s work; and on the other, the celebration of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (which commemorates the belief that Mary was conceived without original sin), which shapes Paetau’s work. From this intersection, the piece brings the iconography of the Virgin into dialogue with sculptural gestures of boundary and protection, as well as with the popular fascination with Marian apparitions. Within this threshold between closeness and distance, devotion and desire, containment and revelation, other possible spiritualities emerge. Here, the queer body ceases to be an object of moral punishment and becomes an altar-body, an apparition-body, a body without sin. In this transition from light to darkness, from the devotional image to the living body, And then they appear proposes a ceremonial, affective, and dissident rereading of faith as a collective experience.
The Erotics of Surveillance, or How to Become a Conspiracy
Madi Awadalla
SAT 30th May - 18:00
The Erotics of Surveillance, or How to Become a Conspiracy is a lecture-performance that follows the interplay between queerness and espionage. It investigates how the body learns to watch and to be watched: how to hold a dangerous secret, how to sense when a gaze hardens into suspicion, how to live when every gesture carries risk. In doing so, the performance examines espionage as a figure of doubleness, concealment, and unstable allegiance. Drawing on ongoing artistic research, the piece moves between film clips, historical material, and personal confession to trace how suspicion and disruption travel across time and place. It links state paranoia, intelligence regimes, and the criminalization of illicit intimacies with present-day surveillance practices.
After a Sin Comes Confession
Najwa Ahmed
SAT 30th - 18:00
After a Sin Comes Confession: Rushing out of the doors in terror, once upon a time, when I saw a sister peeling off her skin in front of an audience.
Fast forward a few years: bits of dried skin still cling to my limbs.
After a Sin Comes Confession is an anthology of grief that weaves an intimate portrait of questions that open wounds, doors, and cans of worms, suggesting that asking difficult questions is never clean: it exposes, destabilizes, and perhaps ultimately liberates.
The work approaches grief as something that does not simply pass, but remains attached to the body. Moving through memory, residue, and ritual, it allows confession to unfold as performance, grief as shedding, and rebirth as something earned through witnessing. It lingers in the space between terror and revelation, asking what remains when grief settles into the flesh, and what must be shed for rebirth to begin.
REVISITED ( IS IT "SAFE?")
Liz Rosenfeld | Melanie Jame Wolf
SUN 31st - 17:00
REVISITED ( IS IT “SAFE?”) draws inspiration from the 1995 film SAFE written and directed by Todd Haynes, and the films focus on its leading lady, Carol as the ultimate archetype of upper middle class white female fragility. This performance queers the film “SAFE” even further. By turning to the fetishized figure of the fag hag,”REVISITED ( IS IT “SAFE?”) explores a simultaneously in/visible queer historical figure and how it has been weaponized by homonationalist ideologies that have shape shifted this stereotype from tragic hanger-on to camp confidante, through debates about power, fetishization, and how allyship persists.
Artists
SJ Rahatoka (aka Jayden Ka)
He/HimPerformer - Berlin
SJ Rahatoka is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary performance creator based in Berlin. Exploring themes of Afrofuturism, Trans identity, and Ancestral Healing, SJ’s work has been screened at Glastonbury and XPOSED. A filmArche alumnus, his short film "Beyond the Golden Line" received the Lolly Award in 2024. He is currently finishing his first feature film.
Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau
They/ThemPerformer - Berlin/Cologne
Interdisciplinary artist focusing on decolonial subjectivities and queer cultures. Their work has premiered at documenta 14, Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, and MoMA. Co-founder of Atelier Lapaetau, Simon(e) has received numerous awards, including the 3sat Emerging Talent Award and Best Director at FICCI.
Jao Moon
They/ThemPerformer - Berlin
Originating from Cartagena de Indias, Jao Moon’s work interrogates dominant social structures through queerness, migration, and diaspora. Their performances have been showcased at Volksbühne Berlin, Centre Pompidou, and the Neue Nationalgalerie, focusing on political bodies and queer futures.
Madi Awadalla
They/ThemPerformer - Egypt/Berlin
Madi Awadalla is a writer, historian, and transdisciplinary artist. Their practice spans performance and visual storytelling, utilizing counter-histories and archival intervention to explore the complex politics of the body, borders, and belonging.
Najwa Ahmed
They/ShePerformer - Palestine/Berlin
A Palestinian visual artist and community organizer, Najwa uses poetry, film, and performance to traverse resistance and queer identity. Their work occupies anti-liberation spaces and has been featured at platforms like ZK/U, NGBK, and XPOSED.
Liz Rosenfeld
She/HerPerformer - London/Berlin
An interdisciplinary artist addressing emotional ecologies and queer memory. Her work explores flesh as a non-binary material and physical abundance. Liz has exhibited globally, including at Tate Modern and the Berlinale Forum Expanded, and recently released her book "Crossings."
Melanie Jame Wolf
She/HerPerformer - Berlin
Melanie Jame Wolf creates works about power, persona, and 'show business.' Spanning choreography and moving image, her pop-aesthetic practice uses humor to investigate class, gender, and the body. She was a nominee for the 2022 Berlin Art Prize.
