What Is It Too Late For? — A reading series in late-shops invites authors, passersby, and late-shop regulars to come together, share stories and explore questions that may have no clear answers.
Over four months, four Berlin Spätis will transform into stages for poets whose work is shaped by migration—be it through the rewriting of language(s), the remapping of geographies and communities, or the democratisation of public space.
But what is it too late for? The question reflects the complexity of the present moment, which is often understood only in hindsight. History rarely makes sense while it's unfolding, and meaning often comes later—through memory, interpretation, and storytelling. In times of social and cultural transformation, looking back becomes not just an act of reflection, but a necessity.
Documentation of the intervention at the Sticky21 Späti, Turmstrasse 47, Berlin.
Curated by the collective OPEN Späti, the reading series offers a multifaceted reflection on how migration leaves its traces on language, writing, and belonging. We approach language not as a means of expression but as a material to be moved, questioned, and rewritten.
Drinks from 16:30 / Readings from 17:00
With: Irina Bondas, Adrian Kasnitz, Winifred Wong
With: Yessica Klein, Inna Krasnoper, Dinara Rasuleva
27.07.2025; @KIEZKIOSK SPÄTI (Akazienstraße 18, 10823 Berlin)
With: Tanasgol Sabbagh, Mücahit Türk, Sarah Claire Wray.
24.08.2025; @Späti Karl & Marx Berlin (Karl-Marx-Straße 221, 12055 Berlin)
With: Giuliana Kiersz, hn. lyonga, Avrina Prabala-Joslin
The reading series is funded by the Berlin Senate for Culture and Social Cohesion.
- from “the schöner route to jannowitzbrücke” von / by Winifred Wong.
- from “[how \ long is the letter i]” von / by Inna Krasnoper.
- from »ein gedicht, eine offene hand« von / by Tanasgol Sabbagh.
- from »Beastchild« von / by Avrina Prabala-Joslin.
How does poetry engage with time? How is the act of positioning—of locating oneself—shaped by our ever-changing reality? By migration? The loss of language? Can we claim space—can we claim time—in our poems? What exactly is the space we seek to claim? Is it a space at all?
This panel explores the intersection of time, space, and creative practice in the context of migration. Together, we reflect on how writing can become a means of reclaiming space and time—and whether positioning might function as a form of resistance.
The conversation doesn’t end here—documentation and reflections will appear on this page as part of our growing archive.
25.05.2025; @VIKTORIA SPÄTI (Katzbachstraße 12, 10965 Berlin)
Drinks from 16:30 / Readings from 17:00
with: Irina Bondas, Adrian Kasnitz, Winifred Wong
Drinks from 16:30 / Readings from 17:00
with: Irina Bondas, Adrian Kasnitz, Winifred Wong
What do poetic experiments and migration have in common? Can a mother tongue be forgotten? Be rewritten? What happens when we write in borrowed languages? In dominant tongues? What is lost and what is preserved in (self)translation? Can a compound language become a kind of homeland?
The panel explores transformations in language and form, the political stakes of linguistic experimentation, and how subversive practices challenge both literary conventions and broader systems of power.
Selected moments, quotes, and visuals from the conversation will be shared here—offering a glimpse into the evening’s reflections.
29.06.2025; @SPÄTI’S BACKSHOP (Amrumer Str. 36, 13353 Berlin)
with/mit: Yessica Klein, Inna Krasnoper, Dinara Rasuleva
with/mit: Yessica Klein, Inna Krasnoper, Dinara Rasuleva
the head of a nail / an open palm]
the head of a nail / an open palm]
Is language consumed – or does it consume us? What does the language of consumption sound like, what forms does it take? Is it as fleeting as an expired best-before date – constantly produced, reproduced, discarded? And what role does poetry play in this? Can it escape the compulsion to consume – or does it become part of the market itself?
This panel explores the role of language within capitalist structures. Together, we reflect on the consumption of identities, on the interplay of language and image in public space – and on whether and how poetry can offer resistance to consumption. The objects and products from the Späti serve as symbolic carriers of belonging, longing, and memory.
After the event, this page will host images, insights, and fragments from the discussion—forming an evolving archive.
27.07.2025; @KIEZKIOSK SPÄTI (Akazienstraße 18, 10823 Berlin)
with/mit: Tanasgol Sabbagh, Mücahit Türk, Sarah Claire Wray
with/mit: Tanasgol Sabbagh, Mücahit Türk, Sarah Claire Wray
Can poetry—and language more broadly—become a collective practice? What emerges when writing is shaped by more than one voice? More than one language? What is lost in the move away from the individual author? Can language shared in the community point toward a different kind of future? Can it foster belonging? Imagine utopias?
This panel explores writing as a collective act. It considers the impact of community-based practices on poetry, language, identity, and belonging. Together, we ask how collective work—especially in the context of migration and recent political shifts in Germany—might open space for new forms of solidarity, resistance, and hope.
Photos, notes, and impressions will be added here as a record of what was shared, questioned, and imagined.
24.08.2025; @Späti Karl & Marx Berlin (Karl-Marx-Straße 221, 12055 Berlin)
with/mit: Giuliana Kiersz, hn. lyonga, Avrina Prabala-Joslin
with/mit: Giuliana Kiersz, hn. lyonga, Avrina Prabala-Joslin
OPEN Späti is a literary collective that understands public space as a polyphonic text surface and stages Spätis as places of permeability—economically, socially, and linguistically.
The collective was founded in 2024 by Sonja Azizaj, Magdalena Filkova, and Katarina Gotic. The first interventions, featuring poetry submissions, took place in the summer of 2024 in collaboration with two Berlin Spätis.
Our practice begins where the aesthetics of consumption meet everyday poetry. Situated between research and fiction, the “Open Späti” serves as an image-metaphor for an open archive of stories, daily life, and neighbourhood fantasies—displayed in a wide shop window.
Our current program deepens these questions—with new voices, locations, and a growing LED topography of multilingualism.
Sonja Azizaj is an Albanian artist and architect who works at the intersection of literature, art, public space, and mediation. Her practice moves between theory and everyday life, formal structures and informal encounters. She studied architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt and is currently pursuing a degree in Art in Context at the Berlin University of the Arts. As part of the duo Të pathënat (Eng. The Unsaid), she wrote and performed poetry in Tirana. Italian translations of her poems by Jonida Prifti were published in 2019 in the literary journals Utsanga and PiùLuce. In 2022, she participated in the Workshop for Young Literature of Jugend-Literatur-Werkstatt Graz and received a residency grant from the TRADUKI program in Prishtina, Kosovo in 2023. Sonja lives and works between Berlin and Tirana.
Magdalena Filkova comes from the Czech Republic and has been working as a language teacher (English, German, Czech) for over a decade, and in recent years is also active as an artistic project leader and coordinator. As a translator and polyglot, she explores multilingualism and the use of language, actively seeking connections between world languages and their sound in both analog and digital spaces. For her master’s thesis in Media Art at Hochschule Darmstadt, that focuses on generative soundscape and poetry and the integration of artificial intelligence in artistic processes, she received the Hessen Graduation Grant (HAB). She is currently collaborating with the artist collective OPEN Späti on a series of multi-language readings. She lives between Berlin and Prague.
Katarina Gotic Damiani is (mostly) a Bosnian (mostly) poet. She is the author of two poetry collections, we need a breathing tongue between (kith books, 2024) and leerlauf (2025), as well as several visual and performance pieces, all rooted in language. Katarina has received numerous grants and awards for her work, including the Work Stipend for Non-German Literature, the Research Scholarship for Translators, and the Project and Reading Series Funding awarded by the Berlin Senate. She has exhibited, performed, and read across Bosnia and Germany. Katarina is currently co-curating a Späti-based reading series centring on migration (but you already know that), and working on an “associative translation” of Paul Celan’s Atemwende into her mother tongue(s). She lives in Berlin.
OPEN Späti
E-Mail: open.spaeti@gmail.com
Represented by: Katarina Damiani
Responsible for Content: Katarina Damiani
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Last Updated: [16.05.2025]