Exhibition Viewing: Cemetery of the Nameless

EXHIBITION VIEWING HOURS (October 20-25) Tuesday, October 20, 12-6 PM Wednesday, October 21, 12-6 PM Thursday, October 22, 12-8 PM Friday, October 23, 12-8 PM Saturday, October 24, 12-4 PM Sunday, October 25, 12-4 PM For the presentation at the Goethe-Institut Boston, artist Pınar Öğrenci adapts her "Cemetery of the Nameless" solo exhibition to the ornate nineteenth-century interior of the institute’s Back Bay Brownstone&nbsp;&nbsp;to create a site-specific installation that connects the landscape of the Turkish-Iranian border to Europe’s migration regime. Öğrenci excavates stories of disappearance—of both waters and people—as part of a return to her hometown and an ongoing artistic investigation she initiated in 2021. &nbsp; Climate change has dramatically lowered Lake Van’s water level, exposing extraordinary structures that lay hidden in the lake’s depths: microbialites, bizarre sedimentary formations resembling corals and stalagmites. These mineral deposits are the result of a millennia-lasting accumulation of calcium, carbonate, phosphate and magnesium—the very elements that human bones are made of—and take on a central role in Öğrenci’s haunting allegory.&nbsp; &nbsp; The exhibition takes its name from cemeteries in the region where the many buried refugees and Kurds remainless outside of the forensic registry numbers on their tombstones. Öğrenci suggests an unsettling parallel between the loss of water and the loss of people’s lives:&nbsp;&nbsp;the lake serves as a mass grave, and these ghostly formations may well be monuments to the countless victims who perished in the region without burial—Armenians killed in the genocide of 1915-1916, Kurdish villagers shot at the Iranian borders, Afghan refugees who lost their way in the nearby mountains. She then takes her hypothesis to the another level: could the minerals released from the bodies lost in Van Lake over the centuries be contributing to the formation of the microbiolites? Through these interwoven narratives of displacement, persecution and flight, the exhibition questions the entanglement of environmental catastrophe and human suffering. Lake Van emerges not merely as a body of water, but as an archive of traumatic events—a repository where the stories of the living and the dead, both human and non-human, sediment together in layers of collective memory. &nbsp; Photo Credit: Pınar Öğrenci

Goethe-Institut

Sound Performance: Eric Wong

Non-Event, MIT List Visual Arts Center, and the Goethe-Institut Boston are pleased to present a special solo performance by the sound artist Eric Wong as part of his Bluetooth Speaker Series in which Wong uses portable speakers to create a fluid, spatialized sound experience. About the Artist Eric Wong (b. 1981) is a Minneapolis born, Hong Kong raised, Berlin based musician and sound artist whose work involves auditory perception and the exploration of human relationships with sonic environments. He often incorporates spatialized sound and reduced expressions in his work, focusing on fewer gestures instead of constructing linear sonic narratives. Picture © Jesse Clockwork

MIT List Visual Arts Center

Sonic Morphology – Perspectives on Contemporary German Music from Within and Without

Violinist Alwyn Tomas Westbrooke and pianist Michiko Saiki (Duo Tesserae) present a program that brings rarely heard voices from eastern Germany into dialogue with international contemporaries. The concert features Rebecca Saunders’ Duo (1996/99), Thuon Burtevitz’s Rabba in Sard… (2004, rev. 2015), Wilfried Krätzschmar’s Neun Späte Bagatellen (2009), and Eric Wubbels’ the children of fire come looking for fire (2012). By juxtaposing the finely wrought, if contrasting, sound worlds of Burtevitz and Krätzschmar with the visceral intensity of Saunders and the intricate rhythmic architecture of Wubbels, Duo Tesserae highlights the breadth of contemporary music today. The program not only raises the profile of underrepresented East German composers, but also reflects Germany’s role as a focal point for new music, as exemplified by Saunders’ Berlin-based career and Wubbels’ recipt of the 2023 Ernst von Siemens Composers' Prize. This meeting of German traditions and international perspectives invites audiences into a landscape of striking contrasts and resonances — a vibrant encounter with the aesthetic diversity of today’s music. Precision, clarity, and color — hallmarks of Duo Tesserae’s playing — shape the concert’s approach, creating a vibrant encounter between different compositional voices and traditions. Program: Thuon Burtevitz Rabba in Sard… via Violin and prepared Piano (2004 rev. 2015) 15’ Wilfried Krätzschmar Neun Späte Bagatellen ("bagatelles sur le tard“) for Violin and Piano (2009) 15’ Rebecca Saunders Duo (1996/99) 12’ Eric Wubbels the children of fire come looking for fire (2012) 25’

Lydian String Quartet presents Beethoven +

The Lydian String Quartet and the Goethe-Institut Boston will continue their Beethoven+ concerts in the 2026/27 season, completing the cycle of Beethoven string quartets alongside contemporary works.&nbsp; Beethoven’s string quartets comprise one of the most complete and profound collections of chamber works in all of Western music.&nbsp;Revolutionary in their own time, these works have gone on to inspire and shape the course of chamber music composition even to this day. In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, the Lydian String Quartet will complete their traversal of the Beethoven quartets, culminating in Spring 2027 with the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. Each concert will include two Beethoven quartets alongside a contemporary work, highlighting Beethoven’s lasting impact and creating a dialogue between past and present musical voices.&nbsp; BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 1 in F major, Op. 18 no. 1 IRIS TER SCHIPHORST Und doch… BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59 no. 1 This season launches with Beethoven’s first published string quartet - loaded with wit, charm, counterpoint. The opening of the Opus 18 set showcases all that Beethoven learned from his predecessors, and looks forward to ways he would change the genre forever. German composer Iris ter Schiphorst began composing Und doch… with Op 18 No 1 as a point of reference, resulting in “an attempt to draw a very personal trace of memory with my possibilities and my language.” The concert concludes with the first of Beethoven’s Razumovsky quartets, a revolutionary work that expanded the scope and possibilities of what a classical string quartet can be. Photo: © Lydian String Quartet

Polarization and Populism: Challenges for Liberal Democracies

Political polarization and populist movements are increasingly shaping public debates in Germany and the United States. At the same time, questions regarding freedom of expression, responsibility, and democratic resilience are becoming ever more pressing. How can open societies allow for controversial viewpoints without jeopardizing their democratic foundations? And what role do academia, the media, and educational institutions play in defending the free exchange of ideas? The Goethe-Institut Boston, in collaboration with the American Council on Germany and Boston College, invites you to a panel discussion featuring Peter M. Huber, former judge of the Federal Constitutional Court and currently a visiting fellow at New York University, and David Art, professor of political science at Tufts University. The discussion will examine current developments on both sides of the Atlantic and explore the tensions between freedom and responsibility, political protest, and democratic cohesion. Co-presented with the American Council on Germany. Photo: © Peter M. Huber, David Art, Hannes Kerber

Animated Beyond

Curated by Zhou Fei, in cooperation with the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen ANIMATED BEYOND demonstrates that animation is far more than the creation of moving drawings or digital figures. It can make social conflicts visible, reconstruct memories, distort political reality, depict psychological states, and subject familiar images from our culture to critical re-examination. The eight films trace a chronological and aesthetic development: from Daniel Nocke’s biting 3D animation No Place for Gerold and David O’Reilly’s internationally acclaimed digital relationship comedy Please Say Something to the experimental, documentary, and collage-based works of Susann Maria Hempel, Katharina Huber, Ulu Braun, and Mariola Brillowska. A particularly clear development in German animation of the 21st century is the increasing permeability of the boundaries between animation, documentary film, experimental film, visual art, and video collage. Animation becomes an independent artistic language—a language that not only creates another reality, but also makes the reality in which we live newly visible. Films No Place for Gerold  Daniel Nocke | Germany | 2006 | 5:00 min. | 3D animation In a shared apartment, an uncomfortable conversation takes place: Gerold the crocodile is supposed to move out. His roommates—a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, and a wildebeest—are not quite sure how to break the news to him gently. What initially appears to be an ordinary roommate conflict develops into a biting and absurd confrontation about living together, belonging, and exclusion. Please Say Something David O’Reilly | Germany | 2009 | 10:00 min. | computer animation In a distant future, David O’Reilly tells, in short fragmented episodes, the story of a complicated relationship between a highly emotional cat and a rather lost mouse. What initially appears to be an absurd variation on a classic animal story develops into a melancholic yet comic reflection on love, communication, dependency, and loneliness in the digital age. I ride to the edge of the atmosphere in half an hour on my bicycle Michel Klöfkorn | Germany | 2011 | 10:00 min. | experimental animation A bicycle, thoughts, lines, words, and images: Michel Klöfkorn’s experimental short film unfolds like a visual stream of consciousness. Fragmented drawings, texts, terms, and symbols initially seem to exist loosely alongside one another, but gradually come together as an associative process of thought. Seven Times a Day We Complain About Our Fate and at Night We Get Up to Avoid Our Dreams Susann Maria Hempel | Germany | 2014 | 18:00 min. | experimental animation Based on interviews with a woman from eastern Germany whose traumatic life story unfolded after she suffered memory loss in 1989, Susann Maria Hempel develops an unusual form of cinematic remembrance. Ablaze  Jan Koester &amp; Alexander Lahl | Germany | 2019 | 5:15 min. | animated documentary When the mayor of a small community in Saxony-Anhalt advocates taking in around 40 refugees, he and his family are met with a wave of hatred and threats. The Natural Death of a Mouse  Katharina Huber | Germany | 2020 | approx. 21:30 min. | experimental animation Katharina Huber’s collage-like animated film follows Anna, a young woman torn between a desire for spiritual and moral self-optimization and doubts about its meaning. St. Mickeyland Ulu Braun | Germany | 2023 | 13:00 min. | video collage / experimental animation Welcome to St. Mickeyland—a surreal reserve where the icons of our media-shaped childhood encounter the contradictory reality of the present. DESIGN BIO TOILET Mariola Brillowska | Germany | 2024 | 4:00 min. | animation / experimental film Mariola Brillowska’s DESIGN BIO TOILET moves between animation, absurd humor, and social observation. With her distinctive visual language, the artist transforms an apparently banal everyday object into a grotesque yet poetic object.

Celebrating Morton Feldman at 100

An introduction by Dr Anne Shreffler, Professor of Music at Harvard, on Feldman’s connections to and reception in Germany. Morton Feldman’s extraordinary late solo piano work, “Triadic Memories” (1981) is a study in slowly evolving repetitions over the 75-minute duration. The composer described the piece as “the biggest butterfly in captivity.” Exact repetitions, subtle variations, shifting patterns and fresh new materials are interwoven. Materials are constantly recontextualized, using different voicing and registers, changing one note of a chord, juxtaposing new harmonies—always changing and always soft. The piece is not outwardly triadic (the harmonies are built entirely of seconds, sevenths and augmented fourths), but triads emerge through the hazy resonance. Some materials happen only once, while others are repeated, varied and recontextualized. The listener is taken on a journey of deep concentration and reflection. Pianist/composer Amy Williams has been connected to Feldman’s music since her childhood—her father and Feldman were close colleagues at the University of Buffalo. She has recorded and performed his music for nearly three decades.

Four Minus Three

Barbara and her partner Heli lead a happy and loving family life with their two children, Fini and Thimo. As professional clowns, they do not take life too seriously and try to laugh at whatever fails to work out. But when Barbara suddenly loses her family to a car accident, her world falls apart. The loss makes her question her existence as a clown and the meaning of her own life. Yet Barbara confronts her fate. Courageous and unconventional, she finds her own way of dealing with her grief. Step by step, she realizes that life goes on despite everything – if you dare to embrace it anew.&nbsp; Four Minus Three is the fifth feature film by successful Austrian filmmaker Adrian Goiginger. He came up with the idea after discovering Barbara Pachl-Eberhart's autobiography of the same name. With sensitivity and a keen sense for his characters, he stages the lively, hopeful story of a woman who never gives up.&nbsp; Director: Adrian Goiginger Austria/Germany 2025&nbsp; DCP, 121 minutes&nbsp;

Coolidge Corner Theatre

Oh, This Unspeakable Void

Oh, This Unspeakable Void At the age of 20, Joachim is unexpectedly awarded a place at the prestigious Otto Falckenberg School of the Performing Arts and moves into his grandparents’ villa in a high-class district of Munich. He tries to find his place in the world between the bizarre challenges of drama school and the eccentric, mostly alcohol-fuelled rituals of his grandparents without knowing what role he might actually play in it. Simon Verhoeven’s insanely funny and deeply moving story about how difficult it is to face up to one‘s big emotions is based on Joachim Meyerhoff’s eponymous autobiographical bestselling novel. Director: Simon Verhoeven Germany 2026, DCP, 137 min. Photo: © Beta Cinema

The Lydian String Quartet and the Goethe-Institut Boston will continue their Beethoven+ concerts in the 2026/27 season, completing the cycle of Beethoven string quartets alongside contemporary works.&nbsp; Beethoven’s string quartets comprise one of the most complete and profound collections of chamber works in all of Western music.&nbsp;Revolutionary in their own time, these works have gone on to inspire and shape the course of chamber music composition even to this day. In collaboration with the Goethe-Institut, the Lydian String Quartet will complete their traversal of the Beethoven quartets, culminating in Spring 2027 with the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death. Each concert will include two Beethoven quartets alongside a contemporary work, highlighting Beethoven’s lasting impact and creating a dialogue between past and present musical voices.&nbsp; BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 5 in A major, Op. 18 no. 5 LERA AUERBACH Quartet No. 10 “Frozen Dreams” BEETHOVEN String Quartet No. 8 in E minor, Op. 59 no. 2 Beethoven’s Op. 18, No. 5, pays direct homage to Mozart. Loaded with lilting melodic invention and humor, this early work is a wonderful foil for the taut agitation of his second Razumovsky quartet, which features one of his greatest slow movements. Beethoven’s student, Carl Czerny, famously wrote that this music came to him “while contemplating the starry sky and thinking of the music of the spheres.” Framed by these two works is Lera Auerbach’s “Frozen Dreams,” her contribution to a joint commission of works inspired by the four seasons. Photo: © Lydian String Quartet

Film Screening: A Land Within

Q&amp;A with director Michael Kofler following the Screening South Tyrol, 1961. The northern Italian region with a German-speaking minority is shaken by a series of separatist bomb attacks. Free spirit Paul wants to escape the narrowness and lack of prospects of his little village and study painting in Munich. When his hardliner brother, Anton, becomes a fugitive terrorist, Paul reluctantly puts his own plans on hold to support his brother’s wife, Anna, and their little son on the small farm. As ethnic tensions and police repression in the village grow, Paul gets drawn into a downward spiral of violence and toxic masculinity. Anna openly condemns the radicalization of her husband but increasingly clashes with the patriarchal structures of the time. When events spin out of control, Paul must choose between following his dream and standing up against violence and his brother. Director and Screenplay: Michael Kofler Germany, Italy, Austria 2025 113 min, digital

Call it Evil. Understanding the Trump Era

Moral philosopher Susan Neiman makes the argument for naming and confronting evil as essential to preserving democracy in an age of demagogues. Call It Evil is a bold reckoning with one of the most fraught words in our moral vocabulary. Philosopher Susan Neiman argues that “evil” is not a relic of the past or a term to be avoided, but a vital lens through which to understand the threats facing democracy today. From the rise of Donald Trump to the erosion of shared values, Neiman examines how our reluctance to name evil has left public life vulnerable to demagogues who twist morality to their own ends. Drawing on history—from fascism to the moral failures of recent US leaders—she shows how the normalization of wrongdoing corrodes trust, distorts justice, and endangers our future. This is a book for readers who refuse to accept moral confusion as the price of political life, and who believe that confronting evil is the first step toward renewal. Publisher WWNorton, release date: September 15.

Exhibition Opening: Cemetery of the Nameless

EXHIBITION HOURS (October 20-25) Monday-Wednesday: 12-6 PM Thursday-Friday: 12-8 PM Saturday-Sunday: 12-4 PM For the presentation at the Goethe-Institut Boston, artist Pınar Öğrenci adapts her "Cemetery of the Nameless" solo exhibition to the ornate nineteenth-century interior of the institute’s Back Bay Brownstone&nbsp;&nbsp;to create a site-specific installation that connects the landscape of the Turkish-Iranian border to Europe’s migration regime. Öğrenci excavates stories of disappearance—of both waters and people—as part of a return to her hometown and an ongoing artistic investigation she initiated in 2021. &nbsp; Climate change has dramatically lowered Lake Van’s water level, exposing extraordinary structures that lay hidden in the lake’s depths: microbialites, bizarre sedimentary formations resembling corals and stalagmites. These mineral deposits are the result of a millennia-lasting accumulation of calcium, carbonate, phosphate and magnesium—the very elements that human bones are made of—and take on a central role in Öğrenci’s haunting allegory.&nbsp; &nbsp; The exhibition takes its name from cemeteries in the region where the many buried refugees and Kurds remainless outside of the forensic registry numbers on their tombstones. Öğrenci suggests an unsettling parallel between the loss of water and the loss of people’s lives:&nbsp;&nbsp;the lake serves as a mass grave, and these ghostly formations may well be monuments to the countless victims who perished in the region without burial—Armenians killed in the genocide of 1915-1916, Kurdish villagers shot at the Iranian borders, Afghan refugees who lost their way in the nearby mountains. She then takes her hypothesis to the another level: could the minerals released from the bodies lost in Van Lake over the centuries be contributing to the formation of the microbiolites? Through these interwoven narratives of displacement, persecution and flight, the exhibition questions the entanglement of environmental catastrophe and human suffering. Lake Van emerges not merely as a body of water, but as an archive of traumatic events—a repository where the stories of the living and the dead, both human and non-human, sediment together in layers of collective memory. Öğrenci’s use of drone technology to capture these revelations adds another dimension of complexity. The same surveillance apparatus that now revolutionizes warfare through AI-enhanced precision is used to document this very landscape of violence at Turkey’s border with Iran. Since their invention in the 19th century, both photography and cinematography have been used for military purposes, but today’s satellite and drone imagery render the documentation of climate destruction and displacement with chilling efficiency. By making use of this technology to bear witness rather than to target, Öğrenci subverts its destructive potential, transforming these tools of surveillance into instruments of testimony and remembrance.

Babylon Berlin with Director Henk Handloegten

Sneak preview of the first two episodes of the final season of the lavish historical crime drama “Babylon Berlin”. Berlin, January 1933: Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor marks the beginning of the darkest chapter in German history. Charlotte Ritter investigates a series of murders targeting former front-line soldiers. The connections and motives date back to 1918. An explosive file has gone missing, casting a new light on Hitler’s time as a soldier in World War I. A politically explosive issue —and those involved seem willing to stop at nothing to get their hands on the file… not even murder. When Gereon Rath suddenly vanishes without a trace, Charlotte doesn’t know if she’ll ever see him again. In the fifth season of “Babylon Berlin,” loosely based on the novel “Märzgefallene” by Volker Kutscher, Volker Bruch as Gereon Rath and Liv Lisa Fries as Charlotte Ritter return in the lead roles. Eight new episodes shed light on the days between the Nazi takeover and the Reichstag fire. “Babylon Berlin” dances its final dances, celebrates dazzling nights, travels to Cologne and Paris, and returns again and again to Berlin. Germany 2026 Directors and Screenplay: Achim von Borries, Tom Tykwer, Henk Handloegten ca 90. min, digital

Book Launch: Bauhaus New England – Portraits of an Architectural Legacy

Join photographer Mark Römisch for the official launch of Bauhaus New England: Portraits of an Architectural Legacy(Hirmer Publishers, Fall 2026), hosted by the Goethe-Institut Boston, where the project's initial idea first emerged eight years ago. Through contemporary photography, the book explores how Bauhaus ideas took root and evolved in New England through the interplay of architecture, light, material, and landscape. The evening will feature a presentation of selected large-format photographs, followed by a conversation with filmmaker Christopher Brown (The Bauhaus Legacy Project) and invited guests on the enduring legacy of the Bauhaus in New England. The program concludes with a reception, book signing, and an opportunity to purchase first-edition copies before the book's official bookstore release.

Goethe Institut 

S22: conversations

Wondering what to do in Boston? Places to eat? Free activities? Good for a group? Date night spot? Girls night out? The best things to do? Ask Joyraft!

Best places to go in Boston? Things to do? Places to eat?

Questions & answers about things to do in Boston

Recs 💬

Community recs 💬

S4: top picks

The most fun, cool and unique things to do in Boston. Can’t miss events, shows and experiences. Concerts, restaurants, bars, free things in Boston and beyond.

The most fun and cool events happening around Boston

Hot and new things to do in Boston

Hot & new

Hot & new 🔥

S11: happening this weekend

What to do in Boston this weekend? From festivals, concerts, performances, free events, screenings and more, Joyraft has the best things to do in Boston.

25+ things to do in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville this weekend

Things to do in Boston this weekend

This wknd

This weekend for you

S17: interest based

Your guide to everything to do around Boston.

Things to do in Boston and beyond

Things to do in Boston

New at Museum of Science, Boston 💫 

S21: roundups

Our top picks: outdoor dining, free events, spring festivals, best bars, upcoming concerts, museum parties - the latest in and around Boston.  Slug: joyraft-top-picks-best-things-to-do-boston-ma

Top picks of the best things to do in and around Boston

Joyraft picks: Boston’s best things to do

Roundups ⭐️

Curated by Joyraft ⭐️

S28: calendar experiences

This week in Boston

This week in Boston 📆

This week 📆

S20: c+d experiences

Discover new, unique events and experiences happening in and around Boston. Perfect for date night, good for a group or with a friend. Be the first to know.

The newest events happening in and around Boston

The newest events on Joyraft

Just added

Just added to Joyraft

S16: editor picks

The most unique and can’t miss things coming up in Boston / Cambridge / Somerville and beyond. Festivals, food, drinks, fairs, concerts, art and free activities.

Unique and Can’t Miss Things to Do in Boston

Can’t-miss things to do in Boston 🚨

Can't-miss things to do 🚨

S2 (A): top experiences

The most popular things to do on Joyraft. Concerts, restaurants, bars, events, parties, openings, kid friendly, date ideas, free things in Boston and beyond.

Top 20 things to do in Boston

Top 20: Joyraft’s most popular

Top 20

Top 20 on Joyraft

S3 (A): trending experiences

Discover can’t miss events and things to do in Boston. The most fun, unique and cool events coming to the Boston area this spring and summer.

The hottest events happening in Boston

Trending events on Joyraft

Trending 📈

S19: interest based

Kid-friendly events in Boston

S18: interest based

Where to eat and drink in Boston? Joyraft has Boston’s newest bars, restaurants and specials. Drinks and pre fixe dinner menus. Cambridge & Somerville too.

Where

goethe_institut_boston

Experiences

Exhibition Viewing: Cemetery of the Nameless

Sound Performance: Eric Wong

Sonic Morphology – Perspectives on Contemporary German Music from Within and Without

Lydian String Quartet presents Beethoven +

Polarization and Populism: Challenges for Liberal Democracies

Animated Beyond

Celebrating Morton Feldman at 100

Four Minus Three

Oh, This Unspeakable Void

Lydian String Quartet presents Beethoven +

Film Screening: A Land Within

Call it Evil. Understanding the Trump Era

Exhibition Opening: Cemetery of the Nameless

Babylon Berlin with Director Henk Handloegten

Book Launch: Bauhaus New England – Portraits of an Architectural Legacy