Inside Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof, visitors become part of an ever changing installation where sound, movement, and repetition reshape the meaning of time itself.
A Massive Interactive Installation Takes Over Hamburger Bahnhof
Lina Lapelytė has transformed Hamburger Bahnhof into an evolving sculptural environment with her latest exhibition, We Make Years Out of Hours. Commissioned through the CHANEL Next Prize, the large scale installation explores themes of labor, endurance, memory, and collective participation through an immersive landscape made from 400,000 wooden cubes.
Spread throughout the museum’s historic hall, the exhibition invites both performers and visitors to continuously rearrange spruce and pine blocks into temporary forms, creating a space that constantly shifts throughout the day.
Performance, Poetry, and Participation Shape the Experience
Rather than functioning as a static sculpture, the exhibition evolves through movement and sound. Weekly live performances introduce songs inspired by poetry from influential writers including Etel Adnan, Mahmoud Darwish, Ocean Vuong, and Forugh Farrokhzad.
The combination of rearranged wooden structures, live vocals, and audience interaction creates an atmosphere centered around transformation and accumulation. Lapelytė uses repetition as both a physical and emotional device, showing how small gestures and passing moments slowly build into larger experiences over time.
Blurring Sculpture and Social Commentary
Known for merging music, performance art, and social observation, Lapelytė continues to push interdisciplinary boundaries through this installation. The exhibition reflects her long standing interest in collective systems and how participation changes the meaning of artistic spaces.
By allowing the work to constantly evolve through human interaction, We Make Years Out of Hours rejects permanence in favor of process, turning the museum itself into a living organism shaped by its visitors.
Exhibition Details
We Make Years Out of Hours remains on view at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin through January 10, 2027, continuing the institution’s focus on experimental contemporary art and immersive cross disciplinary exhibitions.
