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until 29.06. | #4722ARTatBerlin | aquabitArt Galerie shows from Friday, 20. June 2025 the exhibition “What does it mean to be inside of something?” by the artist Gabi Schillig.
In her work, Gabi Schillig experimentally investigates space and architecture as extensions of the living body – as responsive, dynamic communication media. Space is not static or immobile, but alive and constantly evolving, deeply interwoven with human presence and physical experience. Bodies, spaces and actions are not separate entities, but interdependent and closely connected. At the centre of her work is the creation of soft, ephemeral architectures – textile shells, spatial structures, skins and sometimes almost immaterial membranes – that question rigid spatial boundaries
Gabi Schillig – What Does It Mean to be Inside of Something? (Kyoto, 2025), w/ Asami Yasumoto + Kanami Itakura / Foto: Hee-Hee /w/ distant realities
These soft architectures act as spatial mediators, transforming interiors and exteriors into fluid, permeable zones. They invite tactile and embodied dialogues and enable new ways of being in space – from digital imaginary drawings, photography, spatial installations, performances and videos to woven textiles. Softness is a powerful spatial, material, and social concept. It enables adaptability, malleability, and resonance. It embodies fragility, fluidity, and even instability – but these qualities hold a deep transformative potential: when something is soft, it remains open to change. In times of global crisis, when harshness dominates political, social and ecological realities, she sees softness as a methodology of transformation – as an ethic of care and coexistence. Her work aims to create soft spaces: open, protective environments that enable intimacy, tenderness, closeness and distance, as well as mutual sensitivity between people, space and other life forms.
About Gabi Schilling
Gabi Schillig is an artist who creates experimental dialogue-based spatial structures and communication spaces. She studied architecture in Coburg and conceptual design at the Städel School in Frankfurt am Main. Her works, which she develops as part of her Studio for Dialogic Spaces, are shown in international contexts and exhibitions. She has received numerous grants and awards, including from the Akademie Schloss Solitude, the Van Alen Institute New York, the Largo das Artes Rio de Janeiro and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. Gabi Schillig lives in Berlin and teaches as a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. Since 2023, she has been working regularly in Japan, where she continues her artistic research on topologies of softness.
About Yui Kawaguchi
Yui Kawaguchi is a Japanese dancer and choreographer who lives in Berlin. On the opening evening, she will enter into a performative dialogue with the works, the gallery space and the visitors
Opening: Friday, 20. June, 7 – 10 pm.
Exhibition dates: Friday, 20. June – Sunday, 29. June 2024
Artist talk: Saturday, 28. June, 6 pm.
To the gallery
Bildunterschrift Titelbild: Gabi Schillig – What Does It Mean to be Inside of Something? (Kyoto, 2025), w/ Asami Yasumoto + Kanami Itakura / Photo: Hee-Hee /w/ distant realities
Exhibition Gabi Schilling – aquabitArt gallery | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
