Kyiv Biennial, A Bird That Cannot Land

Running 11 June – 13 September 2026, A Bird That Cannot Land is the Kyiv Biennial's Berlin chapter at KW Institute for Contemporary Art. We are happy to be a media partner of the exhibition, as Refuge Worldwide will be recording and streaming three listening sessions from the biennial's live program.

A nomadic, international project weaving together artistic, political, and social questions, the Kyiv Biennial arrives at KW as an expansive exhibition and live program bringing together over 40 voices from Berlin and beyond, the biennial asks how we make meaning and find belonging in times marked by war, uncertainty, and estrangement.

25 June — Stas Shärifulla & Ziliä Qansurá Qosh yulı: On birds and stars as feathers

Stas Shärifulla and Ziliä Qansurá present traditional songs dedicated to birds, rooted in the musical culture of the Bashqorts, a Turkic Indigenous people of North Asia. Qosh yulı, meaning "the Path of Birds," is a Bashqort name for the Milky Way, believed to be formed from crane feathers left along the migration path for birds that fall behind, too weak or too young to keep up. Since birds were considered earthly incarnations of ancestral spirits, songs dedicated to them carry a weight far beyond their melodies. Like those feathers scattered across the sky, these songs exist to ensure that younger generations do not lose their way.

Stas Shärifullá; photo: Darren Gill

23 July — Lucia Kagramanyan Panorama Yerevan: On Armenian Lullabies

Sonic researcher and DJ Lucia Kagramanyan presents a listening session dedicated to Armenian lullabies, drawing on her ongoing research into archival recordings and diasporic sonic histories. Through her radio project Panorama Yerevan, Kagramanyan works with materials from the Public Radio of Armenia, surfacing rare recordings spanning folk, opera, pop, and experimental music. Tracing lullabies from different regions of Western and Eastern Armenia, including reinterpretations from the Soviet era — the session unfolds as a layered encounter where archival material, voice, and memory intersect. These songs, historically created and carried by women, hold within them everyday life, grief, and longing, intimate monologues that endure across time and displacement.

3 September — Fehras Publishing Practices Fayrouz: On musical production in 60s Lebanon

Fehras Publishing Practices (Nancy Naser Al Deen, Sama Ahmadi, and Sami Rustom) host a two-hour listening session devoted to Fayrouz, born 1934 in Beirut, and one of the most beloved voices in modern Arab music. Unfolding within a scenography inspired by her musical plays, the session moves through her 1960s repertoire, woven with stories gathered from booksellers, street libraries, private collections, and fan networks, tracing histories of Afro-Asian cultural production. In a turbulent present, Fayrouz's voice gathers us to listen together, her journey a prism through which to reflect on our own.

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All three sessions will be audio-recorded and made available to listen back on Refuge Worldwide. Tickets are available here. More on the Kyiv Biennial at KW: kw-berlin.de

Cover picture: Fayrouz Neseri Shames Eddine and the Lebanese Popular Troupe on the Steps of the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbeck International Festival 1962; photo: Manoug Alemian