Kinga Tóth: MARIAMACHINA

21.04.2026 / 19:00 – 21:00
With Kinga Tóth

The writer in conversation with Rike Scheffler

On April 21, Kinga Tóth returns to Berlin to present her new poetry collection, MARIAMACHINA, published by Matthes & Seitz Berlin. The majority of the texts were written in 2023/24 during her time as a Literature Fellow at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.

What roles could nuns assume in society and art in earlier times, and what possibilities do women have today? Can withdrawal be an act of self-determination – or a critique of societal constraints? In MARIAMACHINA, poet and performance artist Kinga Tóth weaves together traditional prayers and the voices of holy women from the Middle Ages to the present with the experiences of contemporary women. Nuns, lovers, fighters, cyborgs, and self-composted women enter into dialogue, blending past and present in a polyphonic collage of liturgical fragments, everyday objects, Eastern Bloc witchcraft rituals, and inventive imagery. The result is a collective prayer for freedom, equality, and care – a radically poetic invocation of both the human and the more-than-human.

Reading and conversation in German
Free admission

daadgalerie
Oranienstraße 161
Berlin-Kreuzberg