BUREAU OF TRANSITIONING LANDSCAPES

SOFT GARDENS

05. APRIL - 04. MAY 2025

at sign, CIAT

Zossener Str. 34 (rear building)
10961 Berlin

intro

A subtle hum guides you there.
You walk through the narrow passageway and end up in the middle of an unexpected scenery. It is as if you were gliding down the rabbit hole or descending into a mystical underwater cave. The search for a story about another place has brought you here. Is it a place of dreams or is it the place from a story that has been entrusted to you? Whatever it is, you are here now.

The light has a warm temperature that permeates the whole room. You hear voices ... the voices of the stones, the voices of the weather and the voices of the water. The room speaks in multiple languages. The inhabitants of this new environment begin to gather. Clouds of flowers and branches swirl above you, a dense atmosphere of flora fills the room. It smells of damp earth and organic matter. Some odors are familiar to you others not. The floor is soft, you can lie down on it. Cushion creatures are there to support your weight with their soft limbs. Friendly creatures wave you with their arms of straw and metal. They mean well. You can close your eyes and dream beyond the dream. You are in a liminal landscape. Here everything is possible and everything is always changing.

With contributions by hooops (Lena Astarte Posch & Nicola van Straaten); Lorena Carràs, Jean-Marie Dhur (Zabriskie – Bookshop for Culture and Nature) & Sina Ribak; Aiko Okamoto; Wanda Dubrau & Juliet Meding; Kallia Kefala and Kim Bode

Welcome to the Soft Gardens

a project between Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes and Kallia Kefala.

Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes is an ongoing artistic research initiated by Kim Bode, that explores landscapes not only as material and physical spa aces but also as collective ideas and political terrains. Functioning as a platform for collaboration and exchange, it weaves together artistic research and practice. Kallia Kefala joined the project as part of the exhibition Soft Gardens – a multimedia installation comprising from textile, sculptural, floral and audio works.

In Soft Gardens, the concept of landscape is re-contextualized and expanded. It encompasses not only physical or geographical spaces but also inner landscapes. These inner landscapes are materialized as spatial and sound installations, inviting visitors to experience them as queer utopian places in the making.

The two rooms of the project space sign,CIAT are transformed into a cozy but also eerie "nature" – a space open and inviting. Visitors can rest there, focus on their sensory awareness and engage with the thoughts and impulses that arise. The installation functions as a retreat, a site for imagination and exchange that visitors can actively shape. Textile sculptures invite reclining, ceramic and straw-metal sculptures can be touched and used to create sound, and plant sculptures can be experienced through touch and scent. Light and sound conditions are regulated, allowing for a low sensory experience of the space.

The installation questions the categorical divisions between nature and culture, human and non-human, real space and inner space, linear time and queer time, the private and the public. These binaries blur, allowing images of the familiar world to dissolve, making space for new possibilities of coexistence.

The landscapes that emerge reflect collective desires and political aspirations for alternative ways of being together. They serve as blueprints for a world of queer, cross-species coexistence and mutual support.

Click here for the exhibition program.

We would like to thank our team:
Lydia Miligkou, Michael Fesca, Miriam Döring, Aziza Ahmad, Suza Husse, Cécile Perrot, Agnieszka Habraschka, Wayra Schübel and Louisa Boeszoermeny, as well as Nic and Sim from sign, CIAT.

The exhibition is supported by