Patrick Mahr

Patrick Mahr is a human animal, telling stories of multispecies adventures. He/it is living in Berlin on territory that was wetlands a long time ago – in the 13th century, large parts of the forests were clear-cut, rivers were straightened, and in the 19th and 20th centuries, most swamps were drained. Especially the unique marshy landscape, which originated from the last ice age 12.000 years ago, was home to a lot of endangered species like bugs and dragonflies, but also plants like bog moss, which offered other former indigenous animals like wolves, bears, lynx, aurochs, elk, and of course also human animals the fresh air we all need to survive. In 2026, as in nearly every recent year, new heat records were set here, and climate change continues to accelerate, affecting the most vulnerable of us the most.

With a wide range of training in fields such as wilderness pedagogy, bio-art, inclusion, and the documentation of endangered languages, his artistic and methodological toolkit supports our multispecies communities of all animals, intersectionally. As a member of the Network for Critical Animal Studies in Finland, it advocates reflecting on the authorities of modern science critically and creatively, as well as empowering all of us to become citizen scientists, to reframe the narratives of our togetherness.

Studying fine arts with a focus on participatory art, performance & new media at the Muthesius art university in Kiel/Germany, his bachelor graduation thesis researched a spatial, visual, and sensual translation of music in 2018. Its continued M.A. studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin with a focus on access (aesthetics), trauma-sensitive methodologies, art pedagogy and artivism in the postgraduate program Art in Context since 2022 are paired with years of experience in facilitating bottom-up education formats with its Berlin-based activist collective Klasse Klima since 2022.

His art and workshops have been exhibited internationally, including in 2025 at Villa Lill Kallvik, Helsinki; in 2024 at the Gropius Bau & Tieranatomisches Theater, Berlin; in 2023 at the University of the Arts, Amsterdam; in 2018 at the UNESCO World Heritage site Zollverein, Essen; and in 2017 at the Millerntor Gallery, Hamburg. In 2025, he published an audio drama depicting a sensory journey from an animal's perspective, and since 2024, he has been working on the publication of a role-playing game exploring the cultures of nonhuman animals.