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During Berlin Art Week in September 2026, Flussbad welcomed close to 2,000 guests into a space of collective listening devoted to the collective sonic prayer The Ear Is the Eye of the Soul.

The collective work responds to the life and compositions of Hildegard of Bingen, the visionary twelfth-century abbess, poet, healer and composer who understood cosmology, music and medicine as one continuous mode of perceiving creation. Originally composed for the Holy See Pavilion at the 61st Biennale di Venezia, commissioned by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Ben Vickers, with artistic direction by Soundwalk Collective, The Ear is the Eye of the Soul brings together contributions from 21 artists.

At Flussbad, a four-day presentation of The Ear is the Eye of the Soul began on Thursday evening with a live performance by Laraaji, who moved between piano, zither and gong in response to Hildegard’s score for O Viridissima Virga. Across the weekend, the complete five-hour work played within the Reethaus inner chamber, with visitors free to linger and return as contributions by Meredith Monk, Kali Malone, FKA twigs, Carminho, Terry Riley and more saturated the space. On Sunday morning, Hans Ulrich Obrist joined Soundwalk Collective in conversation to reflect on the conception of the project and the ideas behind it.

“Ben [Vickers] and I felt it would be wonderful to do a garden in this kind of cacophony where one could call to inwardness, to the possibility that there is a connection with the sensory nature of being and maybe also of healing.”

— Hans Ulbrich Obrist

To explore the ideas behind the program, we invite you to read The Long Wave in which Aurora Solá considers the enduring power of Hildegard’s thinking to illuminate contemporary questions around cultural entropy, care and the direction of history. Read more in the Slowness Journal.

Electronic Beats and Kalkul brought Monday Ceremony — a private sound meditation with the inimitable Erykah Badu — to the inner chamber of Reethaus, Flussbad’s iconic sound shrine. Twenty-five guests set aside their phones, rested on tatami mats and listened through headsets as she previewed unreleased tracks from Abi and Alan, her forthcoming album with The Alchemist. Host your event at Reethaus.

“We don’t have to be prisoners to the clock bearing down on us. We can step into different realities of time and participate and investigate and settle into them and see what they do to us.” — Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Sufi teacher and Emergence Magazine founder and executive editor.

What spring is ever the same? To mark the launch of Emergence Magazine Vol 6: Seasons, Reethaus welcomed Vaughan-Lee to lead a lecture and workshop on engagement with seasonal cycles and their fluid expressions, continuing his inquiry at the intersection of ecology, culture and spirituality. Read more in the Slowness Journal.

“We are trying to practice listening to each other, to our inner voice, our inner space, where we are in the moment. We are listening too to the space around us, the architecture, the material of everything, but a larger sense of space too: what is the energy of the space?” — Sasha Waltz, choreographer, dancer and director.

Dialoge—Reethaus brought Waltz’s highly acclaimed work into conversation with the landmark of contemporary sacral architecture, extending her decades-long engagement with the life of buildings. In a Long Talk on the Slowness Journal, she discussed the practices of awareness and deep listening that underpin this experimental work.

To introduce a trio of women’s sportswear silhouettes, Nike’s First Sight: Pulse Club, produced by multidisciplinary collective TOR Studio, explored the intersections of movement, sound and collective practice at Reethaus. An installation of drifting smoke marked the arrival, leading into a collection preview and guided meditation. Guests then embarked on a listening experience curated by Gabrielle Kwarteng, Jennifer Loveless and Bitter Babe before moving outside to continue the evening amid Flussbad’s waterside landscape.

In his practice series Reethaus Ritual, meditation teacher and founder of gentle—noise™ Manoj Dias presented his alternative to the personal-optimization wellness machine. The session moved through breathwork, vocal toning, deep listening and sitting meditation, with tea and chocolate shared as a coda.

For the launch of a new extrait de parfum, French fragrance house Maison Crivelli invited guests to Reethaus for a day devoted to the art of fragrance. A bespoke foyer installation unveiled the resinous-warm accord of Musc Nurāsana, setting the atmosphere for a meditation workshop and fragrance masterclass that introduced the scent’s inspiration through a multisensory experience accompanied by sound healing. The gathering culminated with lunch served in the spirit of omotenashi, the Japanese ethos of welcome that informs hosting at Reethaus.

ASICS chose Reethaus as the setting to unveil a new release through feel comfort find energy, an evening inspired by the brand’s namesake and philosophy, Anima Sana In Corpore Sano: “a sound mind in a sound body.” Produced by Marathon Studio, guests assembled in a communal wardrobe installation before entering the Reethaus’s inner chamber, where French choreographer Léo Walk presented a dance performance inspired by Rajio Taiso, Japan’s daily morning calisthenics tradition. Observation gave way to participation with a guided movement session before the evening concluded with a long-table dinner on the banks of the Spree.

Live performances and listening experiences of avant-garde music and visual art define the Transmissions series at Reethaus. Artists such as Patti Smith and Nan Goldin engage with anthropological themes, inviting audiences to listen differently to their inner worlds.