Per°Form Open Academy of Arts and Activations: The Post-Migrant Academy

29 April–3 May 2026 @ 72-13, Home of T:>Works

T:>Works’ arts conference series PerºForm Open Academy of Arts and Activations (POA) returns in 2026, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Singapore and Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin (Gorki), to present POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy. This public Academy reflects on labour, class, cultural difference, and gender in Germany.

Happening on the Labour Day weekend from 29 April to 3 May 2026, POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy is an intersection of exhibition, theatre, literary salon, workshop and talks. Especially noteworthy is the lecture performance of Unser Deutschlandmärchen (Our German Fairy Tale), one of the top ten productions of German theatre from the year 2024.

POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy unpacks the artistic concept of post-migrant theatre in Germany, a term coined by Gorki’s Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff, through the 7th Berliner Herbstsalon of Gorki entitled ЯE:IMAGINE – THE RED HOUSE – Inventories, Interventions, Inventions), a transdisciplinary festival curated by Shermin, which detailed among other topics, the lives of Telefunken female Gastarbeiters (guest workers) who were selected primarily from Turkey to aid the recovery of the post-war economy of Germany.

POA 2026 Fellows are Gorki’s Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff, writer Dinçer Güçyeter, director Hakan Savaş Mican, actress Sesede Terziyan, exhibition dramaturg Erden Kosova, and exhibition designer Alice Faucher. These Fellows will present the programmes in collaboration with Singaporean acclaimed actress Tan Kheng Hua.

An ode to the Gastarbeiters and their lived experiences, POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy contextualises the stories and realities of women migrant workers within the post-migrant society of Germany. Notably, POA 2026: The Post-Migrant Academy finds a parallel with the lived realities in Singapore, migration, and our own relationship as migrants.

29 April–3 May 2026 @ 72-13, Home of T:>Works

29 April, Wednesday (Opening): 7PM–Late, with supper gathering
30 April, Thursday: 6PM–10PM
1–3 May, Friday–Sunday: 3PM–10PM

After the signing of the recruitment agreement between Germany and Turkey in 1961, a women’s hostel belonging to Telefunken, a technology company, located at Stresemannstrasse 30, became a first home in Berlin for many Turkish women – in a building that had, over a hundred years earlier, served as an educational institution for boys including German statesman Otto von Bismarck. Among the residents, who worked in piecework assembling radio tube lamps for Telefunken, were die-hard theatre fans who followed Bertolt Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble, and other figures at the forefront of German theatre such as Helene Weigel and Erwin Piscator. Other residents had encounters with German sociologist Rudi Dutschke, whom they found to be quite arrogant, which is why they co-founded the first Turkish socialist association in West Berlin. Many admired Ella Fitzgerald in concert or were horrified to have to come across their screen idol Horst Buchholz, often dubbed as the German James Dean, as a “beat-up bum”. Some of these pioneers shaped decades of German-Turkish life in Berlin with their socio-political and artistic work. One of the most famous German Turkish writers Emine Sevgi Özdamar, who was also working at Telefunken at the time, created a literary monument to this era with her novel Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (The Bridge of the Golden Horn).

Making its premiere in Singapore, this exhibition follows the footsteps of these women migrant workers. Their stories about life, love, work, and resistance are accompanied by an intersection of programmes that builds a bridge to present-day Germany.

Initiated by Gorki’s Artistic Director Shermin Langhoff, and researched, compiled, and further collected by Hülya Karcı, Erden Kosova, Tunçay Kulaoğlu, Maral Müdok und Mürtüz Yolcu from works, family archives, estates, interviews, personal conversations by and with​​​​​​​ Mevhibe Çetin, Nuran Dirlikli, Aysel Göksu, İdil Laçin, Nuran Oktar, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Mefharet Sayınbatur, Güneş Schulz, Filiz Taşkın, Melek Konukman-Tulgan & Nica Sultana Vasiliou and many other contemporary witnesses.

30 April 2026, 7.30PM–9.30PM @ 72-13, Home of T:>Works

Performed by Tan Kheng Hua in English, with post-show dialogue by Shermin Langhoff

This literary salon will feature a reading of Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s autobiographical coming-of-age novel The Bridge of the Golden Horn by acclaimed Singaporean actress Tan Kheng Hua, with a post-show dialogue by Shermin Langhoff. A Turkish teenager, the unnamed heroine, signs up as a Gastarbeiter (guest worker) in Germany. Lying about her age, she leaves Istanbul and works on an assembly line in Berlin and lives in a factory hostel. The Bridge of the Golden Horn is a witty account of a precocious teenager refusing to become wise; of hectic years lived between Berlin and Istanbul; and of a young woman’s sentimental, sexual, political, and theatrical education.

1 May 2026, 7.30PM–9.30PM @ 72-13, Home of T:>Works

Performed by Sesede Terziyan in English

A lecture performance of Unser Deutschlandmärchen (Our German Fairy Tale) by Secede Terziyan will be presented in Singapore. In Unser Deutschlandmärchen, mother and son Fatma and Dinçer go through their life together one more time, through their German fairy tale which is everything but a fairy tale. Unser Deutschlandmärchen, the award-winning, debut novel by poet Dinçer Güçyeter, wove together motifs from both his life story, and his mother’s (who came to Germany from Turkey as a guest worker in the sixties). Director Hakan Savaş Mican told this unusually frank and touching family history as a sumptuous musical journey with actress Sesede Terziyan as Fatma, which made its world premiere on April 6 2024, and had been invited to the 62nd Theatertreffen as one of ten best theatre productions of Germany from the year 2024.

2 May 2026, 3PM–5PM @ 72-13, Home of T:>Works

Actress Sesede Terziyan leads a performer’s workshop, using performance as a tool for sparking dialogue and activations. Sesede will draw from her past roles in Gorki productions such as Unser Deutschlandmärchen (Our German Fairy Tale), and share ways of analysing, becoming, expressing, and subverting power structures using the body of the performer.

This workshop is for performers and activators looking to use theatre and performance as strategies for transformation, agency and emancipation. Limited space available. Expression of interest/enquiries, please contact [email protected].

2 May 2026, 6PM–9PM @ 72-13, Home of T:>Works

Post-migrant theatre is a contemporary artistic approach, coined by Shermin Langhoff, notably at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, a theatre founded by Shermin in 2008 with a focus on post-migrant cultural productions, and later at Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin, where she has served as artistic director since 2013. This artistic approach reimagines German society as pluralist, complex, and inextricably defined by the experience of migration. In particular, it moves beyond merely portraying migration, and instead focuses on the contradictory lived realities in a post-migrant society, tackling themes of racism, exclusion, and participation. It is thus nuanced and challenges conventional notions of home, identity, and integration. As an artistic approach, post-migrant theatre is expansive, reflexive, and interdisciplinary, combining theatre, film, visual arts, and literature amongst other genres.

Synopsis: Writer and poet Dinçer Güçyeter’s literary work weaves together migration history, family memory, and working-class embodiments in Germany. His autobiographical novel Unser Deutschlandmärchen (Our German Fairy Tale) is a poetic chorus blending humour, pain and urgency on belonging, and a writer’s homage to his mother and all guest workers. Dinçer’s novel describes his family's life in Germany, marked by hard work and cultural conflicts, without resorting to cliches.

Synopsis: Writer, director and filmmaker Hakan Savaş Mican reflects on his oeuvre including his Berlin Trilogy, by employing the lens of his mother to narrate intersectional stories of migration, labour, class, and memories.

Synopsis: Shermin Langhoff has been the Artistic Director of Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin since 2013. Shermin’s artistic oeuvre focuses on the public political sphere, poetics, and personal narratives. ЯE:IMAGINE reimagines theatre as a bold post-migrant space where diverse voices shape the cultural mainstream. Rooted in political engagement and aesthetic innovation, Shermin will share about her practice that transforms the German stage into a site of resistance, solidarities, plurality, and collective narratives.

Inclusivity is a core value of Per°Form Open Academy.

Tickets (The Post-Migrant Visa) to the Per°Form Open Academy will be on a donation basis starting at a minimum suggested donation of $10, which will allow for multiple entries during 29 April–3 May 2026. For enquiries or expression of interest to the PerºFormer workshop, please email [email protected].

If you are in a position to give more, please consider further contributions towards this and future iterations of Per°Form Open Academy. Your contributions, no matter big or small, help us mount Per°Form Open Academy and enable a gathering of international arts practitioners and cultural innovators in Singapore.

However, if you are unable to make the minimum donation amount, please consider donating a fellow a cup of coffee at $5.

All donation ticket amounts listed do not include the platform fees.

Rating / Age Limit

• Recommended age 18 years old and above.
• Admission is subject to tickets produced at the entrance

Photography / Video Recording Rules

• Please note that photographs and videos of patrons may be taken at the event for use in our archival and publicity materials.

Refund Policy:

• All donations are non-refundable

For more information on Per°Form Open Academy of Arts and Activations, visit performfellowship.org.

For any enquiries, email [email protected] or call at 6737 7213

Per°Form is conceptualised and led by T:>Works Artistic Director, Dr. Ong Keng Sen. With Per°Form, a fellowship platform engaging the public through an open academy, T:>Works aims to cut across silos, disciplines, and fields to support translocal knowledge production, situated practices, and contextualised research as shared resources for the future. In particular, Per°Form focuses on the arts practitioner as a thought leader engaged in care and repair, actively engaging histories, the precarious present, and world-creating. For Per°Form Open Academy of Arts and Activations, Dr. Ong draws inspiration from his seminal work investigating nomadic alternative universities and world-creating in the arts: The Flying Circus Project (1996–2013), as well as the Curator’s Academy (2018–22).

Established in 1985, T:>Works is an independent and international arts company based in Singapore at its space, 72-13. It is currently led by Artistic Director, Dr. Ong Keng Sen. T:>Works’ mission and vision is the pioneering of thought leadership in the arts focused on transdisciplinary, transcultural, and inclusive processes. To this end, there is a strong educational perspective with research and discourse contextualising histories, contemporary experiences, and situated art practices in the global south. T:>Works also serves to investigate the current urgencies of being located in Singapore, and larger Asia, through different creative expressions in the public sphere. It is a recipient of the National Arts Council Major Company Grant from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2028, and is supported by the Cultural Matching Fund, MCCY. T:>Works is an Institute of Public Character with charity status.

The Goethe-Institut is Germany’s cultural institute with a global network. It promotes the German language abroad while supporting artistic freedom, creative experimentation and international cultural exchange. Through residencies, exhibitions, performances and dialogue programmes, the Goethe-Institut works with artists, cultural practitioners and institutions to explore new ideas and create spaces for exchange and creative practice.

Established in 1978, Goethe-Institut Singapore has become an active partner for the local cultural and educational community, supporting projects that encourage experimentation, dialogue and cross-cultural collaboration.

The Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin (Gorki) is the smallest but also the most exciting of Berlin’s state theatres. It is located in a historically significant building in the former Choral Academy on the boulevard Unter den Linden, dating back to 1827. Founded in 1952 as a theatre for contemporary productions, for the citizens of East Berlin it became a municipal theatre in the very best sense – it was both critical and dissident. Since 2013, under the artistic direction of Shermin Langhoff, the theatre has developed into one of Germany’s most important and influential stages for contemporary, post-migrant theatre. In its program, the Gorki is reflecting a diversified society in times of intensifying social and cultural conflicts. It sees itself as a place that is open to all people, regardless of their background and regardless of whether they live in Berlin as a result of displacement, exile or migration. The artistic formats represent the aesthetic variety of contemporary theatre. In 2014 and again in 2016 theatre critics in Germany, Austria and Switzerland elected the Gorki “Theatre of the year”.

Info: Opening on 29 April @ 7PM till late with supper gathering

Info: Performed by Sesede Terziyan in English

Info: Limited space available. Expression of interest/enquiries, please contact [email protected].

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road, 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road, Singapore, Singapore

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