Adriana Chiruta
in Fresh A.I.R. Residency of Stiftung Berliner Leben, Berlin
February-November 2026
Training the Dreaming Mind While Awake
In times of uncertainty, creativity is not a luxury. It is a survival skill.
Fitness for Dreamers is an interactive workshop exploring the dreaming mind as a powerful form of cognition: one that expands the openness to the unexpected, the freedom to move beyond habitual patterns and to respond creatively to the unpredictable.
Dreams are not only private stories; they are also traces of the times we live in, absorbing social and political tensions, fears, desires, hopes and possible futures. Inspired by social dreaming, research in sleep and dream neuroscience and artistic practices, the workshop explores dreams as both personal and collective experiences.
Participation is free and includes the possibility of recording dream fragments for an artistic sound work and collective dream archive. Participants decide what they wish to share and what remains private. The collected voices will contribute to an audio landscape of inner worlds, social and political imaginaries and emerging possibilities.
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Fitness for Dreamers was first developed during ”A villa of one’s own. A mobile residency for 10 actors and 2 locations” curated by Anca Verona Mihuleț, Iris Ordean & Isabelle Henrion, Romania - France Season 2019 and then as a workshop in Anatomy of Happiness series at Studio 2, Deutsches Zentrum des Internationalen Theaterinstituts (ITI), Berlin in 2024.
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part of the fourth movement/experiment:
Dream Archive for Uncertain Futures / A Social Dreaming Cabinet
in Alternative Futures LAB № 2 in Fresh A.I.R. Residency of Stiftung Berliner Leben
Rehearsing happiness at work
What if happiness were not something to chase or wait for, but something we could rehearse till we are really good at?
2 HOURS 4 HAPPINESS is an art workshop exploring happiness as a daily practice. Based on The Game of Happiness Reminders, a collection of playful micro-practices inspired by performing and visual arts, it introduces small rituals of attention, movement, contemplation, play and connection into everyday working environments.
Based on recent research on micro-breaks, the workshop explores how even 5 minutes of art can restore mental energy, strengthen relationships (with ourselves included) and support healthier organizational cultures.
In times of exhaustion and uncertainty, the opposite of a toxic work culture is a culture of appreciation.
Through playful individual and collective exercises, participants experiment new ways of being at work: from lack of trust toward confidence, from fearful competition toward fulfilling cooperation and from exhaustion toward regeneration and playful joy.
2 hours. 20 happiness micro-breaks. A practice that will continue long after the workshop ends.
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part of the third movement/experiment:
work.leadership
WORK FUTURES BEYOND DYSTOPIA
in Alternative Futures LAB № 2 in Fresh A.I.R. Residency of Stiftung Berliner Leben
What if peace were not only a political achievement, but a social rehearsal, a daily practice learned and enjoyed as a game from kindergarten onwards?
PEACE SPACES FOR KIDS is an arts-based educational programme proposing that empathy, cooperation, creativity, emotional regulation and democratic culture become everyday playful school practices rather than occasional theoretical lessons.
Built around The Game of Happiness Reminders and 5 Performative Solutions for Social Change, the programme introduces short artistic micro-practices inspired by theatre, dance, visual arts and recent discoveries in cognitive science. As no war was ever started by happy people,through movement, imagination, play and shared reflection, children rehearse habits that make peaceful societies possible.
Rather than treating happiness as a private pursuit, the programme approaches it as a form of social infrastructure. In times of growing polarization and uncertainty, learning how to create joy, appreciation, trust and cooperation together may become as important as learning mathematics or reading.
Developed as part of Alternative Futures LAB during the FRESH A.I.R. Residency in Berlin, the project starts from a simple premise: alternative futures cannot be built only through new technologies or new policies. They require new social habits.
So, what if peace and happiness became part of the curriculum?
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5 Performative Solutions for Social Change was first presented in CARE FOR OTHER(nes)S, 1st edition of Building Ecostructures for Other Performance Species / 2020-2021 a project supported by the Goethe-Institut Bukarest, Colectiv A and Heritage Contact Zone.
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part of the first movement/experiment:
in Alternative Futures LAB № 2 in Fresh A.I.R. Residency of Stiftung Berliner Leben
Architecture doesn't only shape space. It shapes behavior.
It choreographs our relationships and our social and
political movements.
Conceived for architects, urbanists, designers and everyone interested in creating meaningful spaces, this workshop uses the board game How NOT to Plant a Baobab in Greenland as a playful method for mapping emotional dynamics before drawing plans. Participants are invited to rethink the minimum vital of modernists` through a more biological and less mechanical lens, exploring how architecture can support care instead of control, cooperation instead of conflict and togetherness instead of atomisation.
Starting from each participant's survival dance style—needs, boundaries, rhythms and ways of inhabiting the Earth, we approach architecture not as a collection of objects, but as a living extension of our relationships with ourselves, with others and with nature. Because the quality of these relationships determines whether we have a future or not.
Ultimately, the workshop asks a simple question:
How can we move, in our fragile and finite lives,
from an architecture/geometry of power to
an architecture/geometry of love?
Because we don't simply inhabit buildings.
We inhabit emotional geometries.
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How NOT to Plant a Baobab in Greenland was previously presented
in Now the impulse is to live! curated by Raluca Voinea and Adelina Luft
@ CCA Topocentrala, Sofia, 2022
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part of the second movement/experiment:
polyphonic architecture/urbanism
in Alternative Futures LAB № 2 in Fresh A.I.R. Residency of Stiftung Berliner Leben
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Hopefully, if we are wise enough, the future will not be led by those who control best, but by those who imagine, care and create together.
2 GAMES FOR FUTURE LEADERS is an experiential learning programme exploring leadership as a performative practice. Inspired by visual, performing arts and scientific research, it develops embodied tools for navigating uncertainty.
Drawing from improvisation practices used by Ernest Shackleton, Uri Alon’s research laboratory and innovative design practices such as Snøhetta, the programme explores how uncertainty can become a source of creativity rather than paralysis.
Built around How NOT to Plant a Baobab in Greenland and The Game of Happiness Reminders, the programme invites participants to transform cultures of control and fear into cultures of appreciation, trust and creative cooperation, seeing leaders as gardeners of
creative ecosystems.
Future leaders will need more than strategic intelligence.
They will need the courage to create healthier systems.
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Pilot workshop tested at SRH University Berlin, 8th of June, 2026
and developed within Alternative Futures LAB №2, Fresh A.I.R. Residency, Stiftung Berliner Leben
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part of the third movement/experiment:
work.leadership
WORK FUTURES BEYOND DYSTOPIA
Are our cities lately cities of lonely hearts?
Let`s start to change this.
Solo or partnered, you are welcomed to train for one of the few 100% collaborative games today: The Kiss Game, a love lab and a durational art experiment for the public plus a powerful formula for deep, meaningful connections.
This easy and pleasurable training for more love will help you embrace and contemplate your own and each other's splendor beyond any fear and games of power and control.
Aren`t there enough wars already?
We shouldn't extend them in our intimate lives,
should we?
Let`s rethink love as a feeling that can be rehearsed, nurtured and expanded.
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The video The Kiss was previously presented in 2025 at Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Austria, in 2022 as part of the PAV extension of Documenta 15 in Sibiu, Romania, and both the video and game in 2026 in Berlin at Kunstgalerie des Rumänischen Kulturinstituts in Playlab #2: Love, Fear, and Other Rituals.
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part of the closure movement
LOVE LAB BERLIN
in Alternative Futures LAB № 2 in Fresh A.I.R. Residency of Stiftung Berliner Leben, 2026
About Adriana Chiruta
Adriana is a multimedia artist, philosopher, and performing arts professional currently artist in Fresh A.I.R. Residency of Stiftung Berliner Leben, Berlin, where she is developing Alternative Futures LAB № 2.
Her work moves between visual arts, performative installations, participatory games, philosophy, improvisation, and social imagination. Her artistic practice focuses on creating situations in which audiences actively participate, collaborate, and rehearse possible futures together.
Her works and workshops have been presented at Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, the National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, PAV / Platforma de Arte Vizuale during Documenta 15 and in multiple educational and artistic contexts across Europe.