Marking the opening of TOPOTEK 1’s 30th anniversary celebrations, the avant-premiere of The World in a Square — Intrinsically TOPOTEK 1 took place on Thursday, 23rd of April 2026, at Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin. The new film by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine takes Superkilen — the park in Nørrebro conceived over ten years ago as a civic hub for Denmark’s most socially and ethnically diverse neighbourhood — as its main stage, while also featuring Downtown Høje Taastrup and the nomadic Inflatables installations, opening up to the wider body of work and thinking that has shaped the practice of TOPOTEK 1 over the last 30 years.

The film conveys the intricate relation between public space and the communities that inhabit it. Through the lives of Iman, Peter, Johanne, Kala, and Elisa — a political activist, an astronomer, a tattoo artist, a cook, and a babysitter — Bêka & Lemoine reveal a global microcosm shaped by migration, religion, and politics. Their stories, gathered over the course of one summer spent within the park, speak of a diversity that generates both tensions and unexpected encounters, and of a place where the world converges as if in a village square.

Referring to the very essence of TOPOTEK 1’s three decades of practice, the film aims to question how a context-specific intervention in public space can foster co-existence and enable people to collectively inhabit and redefine a shared place. It speaks of both the design of landscapes and the choreography of human relations — revealing how the architecture of the public realm can act as a catalyst for interaction, transformation, and belonging.

The evening opened with a welcome by Carsten Schmidt, followed by a keynote address by Dr. Brigitte Franzen, Director of the Bauhaus Archive Berlin, and words by Dan Budik. After the screening, the programme continued with a conversation between Ila Bêka, Louise Lemoine, Dr. Brigitte Franzen, Martin Rein-Cano, and Lorenz Dexler, before guests gathered for a reception in the Kino International Panorama Bar.

Unfolding as a choral portrait of a community in constant transformation, The World in a Square set the tone for a year of reflection on what TOPOTEK 1 has built, questioned, and imagined over the past thirty years.