A Bigger Splash! Festival of Future Nows

©Ivan Erofeev

A Bigger Splash! is an installation presented at the Neue Nationalgalerie as part of the Festival of Future Nows 2025, which brought together around 100 international artistic positions, ranging from emerging voices to established practitioners. Conceived as a multimedia work, it combines an audiovisual piece with an interactive outdoor installation.

©Silke Briel
©Jan Windszus

The left-hand Mies cloakroom in the hall is transformed into a time machine that speaks of our possible futures by delving into recent pasts. It becomes a changing room, while two pool ladders attached to the rear balustrade of the terrace frame the dimensions of a public swimming pool. These elements originate from the SEZ (Sports and Recreation Center), an architectural milestone of East Berlin now undergoing a process of demolition.

Once the largest public sports and recreation facility in Europe—and a symbol of collective leisure and social gatherings in East Berlin—the SEZ today stands abandoned, its pools and halls emptied, slowly fading from the city’s life and collective memory. The video work presents archival material from the SEZ and offers a speculative approach to a possible future use of the Neue Nationalgalerie.

©Silke Briel
©Harry Schnitger
©Silke Briel

A Bigger Splash! is an intervention that links the Neue Nationalgalerie to the SEZ (Sport- und Erholungszentrum). What once was the largest public sports and recreation facility in Europe, a symbol of collective leisure and gathering in East Berlin, is now threatened with demolition.

Archive SEZ Sport-und Erholungszentrum
Speculative Collage © forty five degrees

What if the Neue Nationalgalerie absorbed the loss of the SEZ as a place where everyday culture flowed into the bastions of “high” art? What if cultural heritage were defined as much by lived experiences as by architectural preservation?

Through subtle interventions, A Bigger Splash! carefully intervenes with an echo of the SEZ’s pools and communal spaces, drawing attention to the disappearance of these essential spaces that once served as stages for communal creation and recreation. Imagine what might emerge if the worlds of Neue Nationalgalerie and SEZ were to merge, dissolving rigid notions of past and present, and envision a more inclusive future.