Jakob Kudsk Steensen and Dr Bettina Kames on Berl-Berl

Artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen and Dr Bettina Kames, Director, LAS Art Foundation, discuss Berl-Berl, a continuously evolving project that revives lost mythologies and perspectives on wetlands. Commissioned by LAS in 2021, Berl-Berl originally took the form of a large-scale exhibition at Halle am Berghain, Berlin, which travelled to ARoS Museum of Art in 2022, and an online artwork BerlBerl.world, which remains accessible. For the 2023 Forum der Zukunft, Kudsk Steensen has adapted the project for 10- and 30-minute presentations within the planetarium at Deutsches Museum.





Berl-Berl is a living simulation of a virtual pulsating swamp. It pays tribute to the swamp origins of most major cities in Europe, including Berlin, which was a wetland formed over 10,000 years ago until it was drained in the 1700s. ‘Berl’, the ancient Slavic word for ‘swamp’, is thought to be the origin of ‘Berlin’. The work’s structure takes inspiration from Triglav: a deity that represents the three dimensions of Slavic cosmology: heaven, earth, and the underworld.



The artist spent months researching the remaining wetlands of Berlin-Brandenburg, creating an archive of images using a method of macro photogrammetry in which he takes hundreds of images of a single object such as a leaf or patch of mud. Kudsk Steensen renders his findings in a 3D plan to create an immersive landscape using the video game platform Unreal Engine. Partnering with the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, he also wove local specimens from their extensive archive into the visual and acoustic world of Berl-Berl. Kudsk Steensen also collaborated with sound artist Matt McCorkle and singer Arca to create the world’s soundscape. Songs were essential to ancient wetland culture and used to navigate the swamp and to share its mythologies. In Berl-Berl, Arca’s voice morphs with environmental sounds that include those made by local amphibians.