What brings a community together? What carries them through crises, migration experiences, and political upheavals? In her work, What are our collective dreams? (2025), Marina Naprushkina presents a piece that inextricably links artistic expression and collective action.

This immersive installation features large-scale visual elements suspended by knotted ropes and stretched across the room. Reminiscent of demonstration banners, the paintings bear political and poetic slogans in Belarusian, English and German. The juxtaposition of languages alludes to a transnational community characterised by experiences of repression, exile, and new beginnings. Multilingualism and transnational connections become expressions of a shared future. An essential element is the braided rope, which was made during weekly workshops organised by the Neue Nachbarschaft initiative in Berlin-Moabit. This is a platform that Marina Naprushkina co founded in 2013, where art, politics and social practice intertwine. Here, knotting is an act of connection, performed collectively, rhythmically and patiently. This refers to a way of relating to the world that does not think in terms of separation, but of interdependence.
What are our collective dreams? surpasses individual authorship. The work grows out of a long-term collective practice that not only invites us to formulate dreams, but also to create them together.

text by: Benedikt Seerieder