2025 compose◠decompose

compose◠decompose

compose◠decompose
compose◠decompose submerges deep into a cyclical narrative of growth, decay, and renewal. Through the works of thirteen artists, the exhibition traces along the fragile balance of care and control.

The exhibition brings to light the hidden and often overlooked elements of our ecosystem— microscopic creatures, plant matter and organic systems that thrive beneath the surface of our mundane. Here Composition and decomposition do not appear as opposites, but rather as entangled acts of shaping and unshaping, of tending and of letting go.

The participating artists work with various ways to either mimic- or closely collaborate with the processes of the natural world. In this exhibition the artists dream about composing and decomposing. They dream about listening to, remembering and reimagining narratives that collaborate with insects, animals, plants, and microorganisms.

Participating artists:
Alexis Brancaz, Albertina Tevajärvi, Alma Bektas, Augustas Lapinskas & Ditiya Ferdous, Freyja Tralla & Kassandra Laur, Janne Schipper & Andreas Andersen, Johanna Rotko, Julie Sjöfn Gasiglia, Kamilė Pikelytė and Paula Zvane

The exhibition is curated by artists Inessa Saarits and Victoria Björk, and is supported by
EKA Gallery, Cultural Endowment of Estonia and The Icelandic Visual Arts Fund.

Fur creatures with Alexis Brancaz video installation The Preserving Machine (2024)

Fur Creatures, from Tactile sensitivity series (2023-2024)

Zvanes Seemingly surreal sculptures resembling animals and plants presents a series of material encounters where skin becomes a metaphor for sensitivity, protection, and connection. Steel skeletons are cloaked in soft pelts(fur), hard surfaces mimic organic growths, and unexpected textures invite a longing for touch in an increasingly contactless world. These hybrid forms expose a tension between vulnerability and structure, reminding us that sensitivity leaves traces by altering both surface and being.

Alexis Brancaz (DE)
The Preserving Machine (2024)
2-channel video installation

Conceived of a series of diorama imagery, The Preserving Machine (2024) delves into the speculative realm of a post-human world and meander through remnant galleries, where artifacts of a bygone era hint at humanity’s legacy and its potential future.

The title of the piece is derived from a short story written by Philip K. Dick in 1953, The Preserving Machine.

Alexis Brancaz (1999, France)
Alexis Brancaz’s artistic practice includes mixed media, sculpture, and spatial installation with a decidedly site-specific approach, he weaves together traces of lives, concepts, and materials into new narratives, using montage as a spatial gesture of layering their origins. Occupying a space between document and art, and viewed in both film and art contexts, his work investigates time and memory, and the fallibility of the latter.