Der Zug nach Hermannstraße · Marina Kniazeva

The work

Der Zug nach Hermannstraße begins with the scratches, signatures and short messages left anonymously on the windows of Berlin public transport. Usually treated as damage or visual noise, these marks are read here as an accidental diary written by people passing through the city.

During the workshop, participants collect these traces directly from train windows using printing and rubbing techniques. A gesture made by an unknown passenger becomes transferable: removed from the glass, reproduced on paper and placed beside marks made by others.

The resulting collection is an archive without identified authors. Its entries are produced by movement, waiting and repeated journeys rather than by a planned act of documentation.

The project treats public transport as a space of unintended co-authorship, where thousands of private movements leave a shared surface behind. A train route becomes a writing system, and the city records itself through the people who pass across it.

The festival

Emigration to the Future was an interdisciplinary festival that took place in Berlin-Wedding, 7–9 August 2026, bringing together artists, performers and researchers from seven countries working across performance, installation, video, sound and public intervention. Curated by Vsevolod Lisovsky and Anton Polski (MAKE / Citizen Make), across venues including exBrache, Chto Delat and public space around Wedding.

emigrationtothefuture.org · Telegram: @emigrationtothefuture

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