Berlinage – the collage festival
From 6 May to 17 May 2026, the Berlinage collage art festival will take place for the third time. 13 international artists will meet online over a period of several months and then spend a week in Berlin to work together and create an exhibition. During the five-day exhibition, anyone interested – with or without prior experience – will have the opportunity to try their hand at the art of collage in a series of workshops.
Berlinage #3 is dedicated to the theme of ‘Co-Creating the City’.
Cities are complex entities. Alongside buildings and streets, façades bearing traces of centuries past and temporary structures that last only a few hours, it is the residents and visitors who create the city by using it in their own individual ways.
Before the artists come together in Berlin for a week of intensive collaboration, they explore their home cities – from Vancouver to Detroit to Margate. How do they situate themselves? How are they shaped by the places where they live? What questions do they ask themselves? What traces do they leave behind?
During their time together in Berlin, these themes will be further developed and presented as a joint exhibition.
Collage as an art form is particularly well-suited to expressing complexity and simultaneity. “Collage reflects reality better than any other art form. To be alive means to construct, to select selectively from a myriad of objects and ideas, to internalise them and then reassemble them into a new whole, a life. Life is collage,” says the artist Nathaniel Whitcomb.
At a time when it seems increasingly difficult for us humans to live together in this world without conflict, Berlinage #3 is about celebrating collage as a means of collective creation.
With this in mind, anyone who’s interested is welcome to join in a series of workshops.
Opening of the collage art exhibition “Co-creating the City”
13 May 2026, 6–10 pm
14-16 2026 May, 10-6 pm
GlogauAIR Project Space, Glogauer Str. 16
berlinage.berlin
@berlinage_festival
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of workshops in which anyone who is interested can try their hand at the art of collage. The workshops are led by the artists coming to Berlin for the Berlinage Residency. The workshops are held in English with German-speaking support and cost 20 euros.
As changes may occur, please check our Instagram or berlinage.berlin.
Saturday, 9.5. 3pm
Cut & Past the GlogauAIR with Miss Glueniverse
Paste up is a form of street art in which designed paper elements are printed out and stuck up around the city. In a joint action as part of the Co-Create the City exhibition, the outer wall of the GlogauAIR Art Space will be decorated – led by Berlin collage and street art artist and member of berlinpastup, Miss Gluniverse.
Thursday, 14.5., 4pm
Phyllis Schwartz: Exploring Landscapes
How do you co-create a city? How do you picture the world around you? What places feel like home, and what landscapes live only in your imagination? In this workshop, we’ll explore how landscapes can reflect mood, memory, and identity.
Using collage, you will create evocative landscapes from layers of paper, colour, texture, and found images. You can bring photos of meaningful places or select from the materials provided. No prior art experience is needed—just curiosity and a willingness to experiment.
Phyllis Schwartz, born in Brooklyn, is a photographer, ceramicist, collage artist and author. Together with Edward Peck, she regularly creates art projects for communitys.
Friday, 15.5. 11 am
Bettina Homann: How I see myself on the inside – collaged Self-Portraits
How do you see yourself? Who are you? Is there someone you would rather be? Would you like to change your eye colour or your mindset? This workshop delves into the possibilities of self-exploration and self-expression in the form of collage. You can work with photos of yourself (please bring a selection with you) or freely. No prior knowledge is required.
Berlinage founder is working as a collage artist and writer. She very interested in the ways in which collage facilitates self-exploration.
Friday, 15.5. 4pm
Ginger Sedlarova: The four sentence challenge
Pick up your scissors and push your cut-and-paste limits with this versatile art-making experience! The Four-Sentence Challenge involves creating a piece of art in response to prompts. A hat with several sentences on slips of paper is passed around for each artist to select four. These sentences are both the constraint and the freedom to create a collage that tells the story inside those four slips of paper. This exercise encourages both creative thinking and introspection.
Ginger Sedlarova is a collage artist, storyteller and accidental archivist from Burnaby, B.C., Canada. She creates vibrant, emotional paper-based landscapes of memory using imagery, texture and colour.
Saturday, 16.5., 11 pm
Louise Liu: Guided tour of the Exhibition
Collage artist and Berlin Collage Club founder Louise Liu guides visitors through the exhibition, giving them the opportunity to talk to the international artists and then create their own work at the large collage table.
Saturday, 16.5., 3pm
1+1=¥
The Magic of Co-Creation
In this workshop, psychologist, coach and leadership trainer Anna Homann invites you to experience the exciting possibilities that arise when you dare to leave your comfort zone and engage in a collaborative process. We tend to always approach things in the same way that seems ‘right’ to us. But it holds great opportunities for genuine innovation, when very different – perhaps even contradictory – ideas and temperaments come together. Beyond the familiar the magic begins.
This workshop is not about collage, but about the creative process in general.
