The exhibition “Juwelias Blüten” (Juwelia’s Blossoms) presents garden paintings by drag queen and artist Juwelia Soraya alongside photographs by Anja Teske, who has known and documented Juwelia’s garden for years. The works of both artists bring to life their profound passion for gardens and their often idiosyncratic and whimsical details.

Juwelia Soraya is a Berlin drag icon, artist, painter, actress, singer, and legend. Her exuberant paintings are characterized by vibrant acrylic colors, a joyful naive style, and dreamlike motifs: Juwelia herself on the stage of her salon, everyday Berlin scenes, erotic encounters – and repeatedly her garden in its excessive splendor. Since 2019, Juwelia has been creating her small, anarchic garden paradise using artificial flowers, textiles, sculptures, and plants within an allotment colony in the heart of Berlin. In Sanderstraße in Berlin-Neukölln, she runs the gallery Studio St. St., a personal and unique space for art, music, and legendary salon evenings. Juwelia is the protagonist of several films, including “Survival in Neukölln” (2017) by Rosa von Praunheim. In 1991, ZEITmagazin declared her “Berlin’s most beautiful female man” in a cover story.

Anja Teske is a Berlin-based photographer who, with a great sense of discovery, takes the unspectacular and the bizarre seriously, treating them as a narrative field. Her work is shaped by a trust in the quiet power of images. In her photographs of Juwelia’s allotment, Anja Teske sensitively approaches the garden as a stage, precisely and calmly observing the incidental, quirky, and unspectacular elements of this Neukölln idyll. Her photo book, “Juwelias Blüten. Der Garten Eden von Neukölln,” was published by Martin Schmitz Verlag in 2025.

Supported by the Exhibition Fund for Municipal Galleries and the Exhibition Remuneration Fund of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.