2026
Plaster coated with epoxy resin, cast silicone, opaque distilled water, silicone hoses, arduino-controlled peristaltic pumps, stainless steel, acrylic glass, color filter
water coreography: 1 h / loop
Code Design in collaboration with Alberto Sardo
Exhibition views:
WHEN ONLY SOLITUDE
HEW at Luxfer Gallery, Česká Skalice
In cooperation with KWADRAT Gallery Berlin
WHEN ONLY SOLITUDE
HEW at Luxfer Gallery, Česká Skalice
In cooperation with KWADRAT Gallery Berlin
mere limen draws on the ritualised transformation of the medieval figure of Melusine as a way of thinking through opacity, alterity, and transcorporeal becoming. Every Saturday, hidden from view, Melusine retreats to water, where her body exceeds familiar categories; when witnessed, she can no longer return from the altered state. mere limen takes this hidden space as a protected site in which transformation can be embodied and rehearsed, opening space for fluid forms of embodiment.
In the installation, water occupies this space materially and conceptually. White basins contain clouded water and cast replicas of objects used for swimming and diving. As bodily extensions, these devices assist flotation, immersion, and movement in liquid environments. Reproduced in silicone, they hover between prosthesis, tool, and speculative body part, evoking forms of corporeal adaptation and gender ambiguity.
A choreography produced by four programmed peristaltic pumps repeatedly raises and lowers the water over the course of one hour. The subtle shifts in water levels alter the conditions under which the silicone objects appear: emerging, submerging, drying, wetting, resting, vibrating. Their surfaces shift between exposure and concealment, appearance and withdrawal.
The installation reflects on the politics of visibility and the transformative force of the gaze, yet unsettles the myth's underlying logic. Drawing on posthuman and feminist-queer conceptions of subjectivity, particularly Rosi Braidotti's understanding of becoming as relational, processual, and fundamentally unfinished, mere limen attends to the conditions under which bodies are constituted through encounters with environments, materials, and technologies, and suggests a fragile space in which transformation can be witnessed collectively.