
My work explores subtle structures of power that shape how personal and collective histories are remembered, obscured, or rendered inaccessible. Working across installation, video, sound, performance, and text, I examine violence and inequality as social practices. At the intersection of counterculture and counterviolence, I am interested in the potential of the body, placing tenderness beside it as a political and affective force. My works are often biographically informed, reflecting my experiences as a woman and as someone from a working-class background. Through non-linear narrative structures, I interweave sociopolitical questions with elements from science, literature, pop culture, and lived experience.
Alongside my solo practice, I regularly engage in collaborative and temporary constellations with artists and groups, including performer @nnast_antn (since 2019) and artist Lukas Liese (since 2017). Together with artist and stage designer Magdalena Emmerig, I co-founded Periferi-Magazin (2021–2023), a platform for utopian and speculative text-based work. I was also a co-founder of the performance series Rosa Bonheur, c.u.n.T. at Café Dujardin, contributing to counterculture and queer visibility in Berlin-Wedding (2023/24). For a protest action at the Brandenburg Tor in Berlin, I developed, together with terre des hommes e.V. and Pro Asyl, the Memorial for Separated Families, an interactive installation advocating for refugees’ right to family reunification (2023).
about
Josephin Hanke lives and works in Berlin. She studied in Berlin, Reykjavík, and Braunschweig. She was master class student of Professor Candice Breitz and Eli Cortiñas in the Spatial Concepts class at the University of Fine Arts Braunschweig (HBK Braunschweig). She completed her diploma in sculpture under Professor Else Gabriel at weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin. Before beginning her studies, she completed an apprenticeship in bespoke tailoring at the Stiftung Oper Berlin (2011).
Her work has been presented at festivals and exhibitions including the Fringe Festival Stockholm, EMAF Osnabrück, Kunstverein Braunschweig, and Mönchehaus Museum Goslar. She has received the Neustart Kultur Kickstarter Grant (2021), the Neustart Kultur Fellowship from Stiftung Kunstfonds (2022), and the Berlin Senate’s GLOBAL Cultural Exchange Grant (2026).