jakob klaffs - video | ritual | performance | grief facilitation

video artist. performing arts. ritual. grief. berlin.

[jakobklaffs]

after two years of research and work, i will premiere and celebrate the first chapter of geheimwege – a video series and artistic research project exploring ritual, grief, play, and embodied practice as responses to the separations carried by modernity rooted in europe, and as attempts to develop ways of relating to life, death, decay, and becoming that were either lost or never given the chance to grow.

saturday, 13.06.2026, 16h (workshop) / 19h (video premiere)

[read more]

[jakobklaffs]

dear friends, colleagues, and supporters,

i need your help! i want to train as a grief process facilitator with circlewise to guide people safely and with trauma sensitivity through their personal and collective grief experiences.

to the crowdfunding: https://gofund.me/f611dcc5

[jakobklaffs]

jakob klaffs – documentary showreel 2025

Arts, Culture & Festival Formats

This showreel features selected documentary works from 2016 to 2024, focusing on cultural and interdisciplinary formats – including festivals, concerts, interviews, artist portraits, and collaborative projects.

Featured excerpts come from productions for Wiesbaden Biennale, Klangwerkstatt Berlin, Save The Future, Konzerthaus Berlin, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Ensemble Modern, Achim Freyer Stiftung, Dasol Kim, among others.

The reel emphasizes atmosphere, audience interaction, artistic processes, and visual storytelling – captured through an observational, discreet camera style and minimal visual language.

Voices: Max Raabe, Achim Freyer, Amelie Deuflhard (Kampnagel), Chi-chi Nwanoku (CHINEKE! Orchestra), Marina Ponti (UN SDG Action Campaign)

[jakobklaffs]

BORDERLAND: artist research month hosted by ponderosa stolzenhagen

research & showing (excerpts)

jakob klaffs, 6.2024

with support from museum angermünde

[jakobklaffs]

ritual workshop & performance "rituals for the anthropocene"

04.10.2023, 17-21h at KuKuMu / Scope Berlin, Lübecker Str. 43, 10559 Berlin

in this workshop i will share my own artistic perspective about ritual in the context of european, western culture and its lack of such practices, and i will invite for some simple impromptu ritual practice and exercises around intentions related to creating a sense of community or similar.

my ritual practice is not attached to a specific faith, dogma or ideology. i aim to create safer spaces, trauma informed, to welcome all kinds of people. this workshop is open and not exclusively for queer people.

at 19:30 we will show hugo x tibiriçá’s video ritual performance “rituals for the anthropocene - ritual #3”

to join, write me: [email protected]

admission: 10-15 eur, if possible group max. 12 participants

[jakobklaffs]

your wrongs create trouble in my heart

ritual exhibition and performance

Scope Berlin, 29.09.-13.10.2023

jakob klaffs (they, them / he, him) is a queer multidisciplinary artist, exploring ritual through performance, somatic work, video and visual art. 

out of experiencing a lack of ritual culture, community, connection and somatic integrity, growing up in the flat lands of northern germany, they started exploring ritual as a way to counteract the perpetuation of traumatic patterns that lie within and spread from euronormative culture. in this ritual exhibition, they will invite the visitors to encounter and confront the german freeze.

people moving and migrating to germany usually come across a phenomenon: how difficult it is to connect and feel close to white germans. often it is said: the germans are cold. it seems that for centuries, maybe even longer, this whole culture has fallen more and more into the most intangible of the primordial trauma responses available to mammals: not the fight, not the flight, but the freeze.

the works presented and the rituals hosted during the exhibition period address this freeze response, while attempting to counteract it through the connective and transformative potential that rituals can provide within their liminal and safe(r) spaces.

during the exhibition period, the artist will also facilitate workshops and further impromptu ritual sessions will be held, as well as guest video-ritual presentations by invited artist hugo x tibiriçá.

29.09., 18h: opening ceremony

4.10., 17-21h: ritual workshop and guest performance by hugo x tibiriçá

11.10., 17-21h: ritual workshop and guest performance by hugo x tibiriçá

7.10., 18h: open exhibition and performance

13.10., 18h: closing ceremony

impromptu rituals throughout the week and on request, further dates coming soon

[jakobklaffs]

a forgotten spirit

character / ritual performance

(Jakob Klaffs, 2023)

german scientists still struggle to explain this phenomenon: where does it come from? how? has anyone heard of this before? is it even real? which federal authority should be informed to take action about it? and who said that operetta is just a symptom of euronormative trauma? yet, with every appearance of this forgotten spirit, it becomes much harder to ignore or not acknowledge.

they speak; they even claim to be of old, ancient heritage, originating from a time when anthropocentrism, patriarchy and the strive for unconditional economical growth were still limited, and the humans of europe were still in good connection with nature and non-human beings. they defy the obsessive urge of nowadays dominant culture to put everything into boxes, and yet it’s obvious that they have gone through a lot. their gender is ambiguous, as is their species. traces of swamp and melancholy surround them, emerge out of nowhere and disappear just the same. should this entity indeed be a long forgotten spirit, a fierce survivor of european culture?

i developed this character in 2023 to implement the findings of my ritual-research into a performance act, based on elements of bouffon, music theater and ritual art.

[jakobklaffs]

What is a ritual? Why do rituals matter? How do I find rituals as a performer?

Visit Original Link

I live and work as an artist in the fields of performing arts, video, photography, music theater, and ritual art. Being queer and with my background of dreams and practice in theater, classical music, and opera, I find myself increasingly wondering: how can this Western, this European culture, which holds itself in such high esteem, bring the entire planet's nature to the brink of collapse and spread a state of melancholy, depression, and dissociation around the whole globe? Therefore, I now find myself exploring rituals as an art form in which art, activism, somatics, healing, transformation, and genuine connection can come together.

I trace my fascination with ritual back to my own experience of growing up with a lack of ritual, which equates to a lack of connection to oneself, the people around, nature, and higher meaning. Very early in my life i survived a period of life-threatening sickness due to a then unidentified autoimmune-disease, which, as a trauma-consequence left me for life with a big lack of somatic integrity.

As a means of survival, I kept searching for what was lost for me and discovered, after a lifelong wandering, that the culture surrounding me was, on a normalized level, lacking something very similar: Melancholy, the European disease of losing a sense of life, evolved for complex reasons, dating back to the times when common ritual culture began to be swamped out and replaced more and more by so-called high-culture: christian liturgy, theater, fine art, ballet, and opera. I see art not just as a means to survive this culture, but to resolve it.

In my work, I share my findings in the form of ritual workshops, involve myself as a performer, create photography and video art, and look for ways to practically connect these mediums with ritual. By doing so, I enable their transformative potential, which I believe art should have, to expand beyond aesthetics and entertainment, towards experience and efficacy.

I speak from within the European-Western culture, white culture, which i see as a result of historic trauma, necessary to confront and resolve. It is essential to me to acknowledge and mourn the loss that European culture induced upon itself for millennia. 

Western European nations spread the same violence they caused to themselves on an even larger scale over other innocent cultures worldwide through colonial processes and human supremacism. To move towards any restoration, healing, and reconciliation, I believe that recovering a capacity for self-connection, for example, with the help of art and ritual, is a necessary step.

To mourn gives value to what was once lost and creates space and capacity to find vitality again. Ritual gives form and space to mourn, and art gives a vessel and inspiration for ritual; connection to oneself and vitality are needed to genuinely connect also with those affected by our actions; to grow capacity for assuming accountability and responsibility for our legacy of violence and domination, and face the challenges of our time.

Through my work i want to contribute to interrupt the perpetuation of patterns of trauma that lie within and spread from our, the western, the european culture.

[jakobklaffs]

Workshop series: reclaiming ritual for the arts

19.07., 02.08., 16.08., 30.08., 13.09.2023 / 18-21h / @kukumu berlin

to the registration

In five workshop encounters I will share my findings and experience on rituals and their relevance for our time and for artists, as well as explore the topic practically and in dialogical exchange with the participants.

I believe that art as part of a whole cultural body is relevant to the health and integrity of that body. I believe that we cannot allow this body to continue to dissociate into fragments that supposedly function independently of each other. With my work, I want to contribute to disrupting the persistence of trauma patterns in European culture, and I also want to inspire other artists to engage with these questions in new ways.

What possibilities are there to give artists of our time, living in western culture, access again to the transformative potential inherent in rituals? What is missing to fulfill a desire to make art more ritualistic again? How can the oppositions of entertainment and ritual art be combined in a way that preserves the integrity of the ritual Each of the five meetings is variably composed of the following elements: - Movement and mindfulness exercises, games that prepare the theme and foster the group's connection to each other. - lecture and exchange on different aspects of the theme of ritual and art in each case - practical exercises on the practice and background of ritual culture - impromptu rituals created in resonance with the course of the workshop - Recurring recap of the immediate experience of the workshop as a liminal space and the potential impact on artistic practice Participation in all encounters is encouraged and beneficial, but not mandatory. Joining at a later date is also possible. ADMISSION: 10 € (or pay what you can) LANGUAGE: english (explanations in german possible) DATES: 19.07., 02.08., 16.08., 30.08., 13.09. TIME: 18-21h LOCATION: KUKUMU - lübecker str. 43, 10559 berlin (u-bahn turmstraße) | https://kukumu-berlin.de GROUP: min 3 - max 12 participants

SIGN UP or ask about: post (at) jakobklaffs.de or through this formular

about me:

out of a sense of lack of ritual tradition and practice, growing up as a queer person in the flat lands of northern germany, as well as a great fascination and attraction to it from a young age, i have long been involved with the subjects of ritual, performance, community and body-based practices. through that i have always been looking at the shadow of european-western culture and what could be a way towards insight and integration.

[jakobklaffs]

photo rituals (excerpt)

january - march 2023, étampes, france

participants and their intentions, completed and witnessed in photo:

Amanda / release, fun, moving forward.

photo rituals during the solo exhibition your wrongs create trouble in my heart (scope berlin, 2023)

Visit Original Link

Miriam / clarity. Zoe / contact.

a defining characteristic of rituals is that they have to take place live, in co-presence of the participants. they can only be in the moment. ritual as art defines a range within the performing arts.

photography on the other hand is visual art, it is a visual imprint of just a moment, usually just a small fragment of a second. this imprint can be witnessed anytime after, but never in the moment, never in co-presence with the performers.

a dream came up: photography and ritual together, merging their seemingly opposite and incompatible qualities. how would that work, i wondered? a photograph could document a ritual. and a photograph could serve as an item of focus or intention, during a ritual... or, could the taking of a photograph be an integral part of a ritual, would this be the conjunction i was dreaming of?

Visit Original Link

Jack / gratitude. Joe / opening up.

when i met my classmates at theater school this year, i invited some of them to join this ritual experiment with me. in the beginning of each photo shoot, i asked them for two simple words of intention. how would you like to feel, be, what quality would you like to embrace, for today, the coming week or even year ahead? and i added a third one, asking if they could relate with it too. at some point during our shoot, wandering through the medieval french town that our school was in, when it felt right, i would ask them to find a gesture, expression, movement, any image that would represent their word of intention. and along i would find a composition for the picture to be taken. once found, performed and spoken, i would release the shutter to complete the ritual.

Visit Original Link

here i am sharing some of my dream with you: the result, a photography, witnessing the exact moment of ritual completion, thus being part of the ritual, enabling anyone looking at it to become a witness of the ritual as well, supporting the intention, even back in time (and forward, seen from the moment of the ritual). a step for photography to be brought beyond the limits of aesthetics, virtuosity and entertainment, into the range of experience and efficacy. 

thank you to each of the class mates, friends, being company on this excursion. we found fun, connection, release, form, curiosity and many more things during these encounters. i feel a lot of love for each of you.

Miriam / connection, courage.

Franky / kindness. Marcel / active

[jakobklaffs]

Portraits - the colonized countess (hugo x tibiriçá, Jakob Klaffs, 2022)

photography

[jakobklaffs]

Portraits (Jakob Klaffs, Anna Schoeck, 2022)

photography

[jakobklaffs]

nach einem wunderbaren 2022, geht es mit ersten projekten weiter im neuen jahr. rituale, videoarbeiten, performance, workshops... ich stehe für anfragen für projekte und auftragsarbeiten offen! --- after a wonderful 2022, the new year continues with the first projects. rituals, video works, performance, workshops... i am open for requests for projects and commissions!

[jakobklaffs]

WORKSHOP SERIES: Geheimwege - Rituals and Games

lecture-workshops, practically and co-educatively exploring relations, intersections and new ways of combining the practice of rituals, games and performing arts within the frame of a somatically alienated european culture.

concept, directing, workshop

Why do rituals exist? Since when, and for what? Rituals are old-fashioned hocus-pocus, some say; they only exist in distant cultures, fantasy novels, in the church and monarchies. What relevance do rituals still have in such times of exponential technification, metaverses, late stage capitalism, climate collapse and unprecedented planetary change? WORKSHOP SERIES: Geheimwege - Rituals and Games

#1, 22.11. | #2, 29.11. | #3, 13.12. | #4, 20.12.2022 | #5, 11.01.2023 it’s possible to join new to any edition of the workshops. it is not necessary to have been to previous meetings. with each millennium, each era of our history, humans have evolved diverse cultures and made them ever more complex. rituals are a skill that developed together with culture, so that humans could survive this development in the first place. in the threshold area between culture and nature, rituals open up a space of experience in which fundamental needs can be reconciled with the demands of cultural complexity and abstraction.

out of a sense of lack of ritual tradition and practice, growing up as a queer person in the flat lands of northern germany, as well as a great fascination and attraction to it from a young age, I have long been involved with the subjects of ritual, performance, community and body-based practices. this workshop series is part of my artistic exploration of the subject, and I would like to invite you to take part in it. together we will try out impromptu rituals, make connections from our everyday lives to the history and backgrounds of rituals and, very important: we will play games as we may know them from our childhoods; games are important precursors and relatives of rituals, which bring us in the simplest way and without any obligation into a liminal state: the very concrete here and now, from where somatic transformation can happen.

ADMISSION: free (suggested donation: 3-7€, for supporting the space) LANGUAGE: english (Erklärungen auf deutsch möglich) LOCATION: altes finanzamt queer feminist collective - schönstedtstraße 7, 12043 - berlin, DE (u-bahn rathaus-neukölln). REGISTRATION and further information: [email protected] GROUP: min 2 - max 12 participants

[jakobklaffs]

'til the snakes drop from her head / Jakob Klaffs, 2022

ritual performance

gefördert vom Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR.

[jakobklaffs]

Twins / Imogen & Ramona Karcher, hugo reis, Jakob Klaffs, 2021/2022

dokumentatives theater

camera, workshop

[jakobklaffs]

Gemeinschaft und Rituale während der Pandemie. Recherche. / Jakob Klaffs, 2021

Künstlerische Residenz auf Kampnagel Hamburg, gefördert durch das Programm TakeCare des Fonds Darstellende Künste