“Interweaving Identities”
Dates: 28th February – 21st March 2025
Identity is fluid, ever-evolving, and shaped by the places we inhabit, the cultures we encounter, and the histories we carry. Interweaving Identities is the culmination of a four-week artist residency dedicated to exploring how personal and collective identities are negotiated in Berlin’s dynamic, multicultural landscape.
Through diverse artistic practices, Lady Gaby, Jingwen Yao, YunXuan Yang, Tatiana Bulanova, and Alice Brunello Luise examine themes of heritage, belonging, and transformation. Their works reflect intimate dialogues with their own histories while engaging with the broader social fabric of the city.
This exhibition is an invitation to reflect on how identities are woven together—shaped by movement, memory, and connection. As Berlin itself continues to shift and redefine its cultural landscape, Interweaving Identities asks: How do we find ourselves in a place of constant change?
We invite you to explore these narratives and join the conversation.
Lady Gaby
Country: Australia.
Mediums: Sound installation, mixed media collage and foil sculptures.
Artworks: ‘Greetings’, ‘Unity’, Limbs and Body Parts’.
‘Greetings’ - Berlin, the city where everyone has a different language, culture and beliefs. To start this journey with you, to help you understand our stories, and where we started from, we recorded greetings from our own traditional mother tongue.
In ‘Unity’ we intertwined hands, hair, arms, and fingers, weaving our bodies into collages that reflect the fluid nature of identity. Through collaboration, we found unity—not as something fixed, but as something constantly evolving. Too often, the female form is reduced to objectification, its essential strength and movement overlooked. By reclaiming visibility, we honor the body as a whole—a vessel of history, belonging, and transformation. In Berlin’s ever-changing landscape, where cultures merge and identities shift, these works invite us to see ourselves not in isolation, but in the spaces where we connect and redefine who we are.
Jingwen Yao
Country: China.
Mediums: Mixed media installation.
Artwork: ‘Stories of Names’.
‘Stories of Names’ delves into the evolving names and identities of five artists from diverse cultural backgrounds. Shaped by migration, cultural shifts, and life experiences, their names transform—marking chapters of their journeys. Meeting in Berlin, the artists weave their stories together, exploring how names carry echoes of heritage, belonging, and self-definition. Through these narratives, the artwork reflects the role of names in shaping identity, fostering belonging, and linking past and present.
Alice Brunello Luise
Country: Italy.
Mediums: Mixed media installation.
Artwork: ‘Ex Voto: Fractured Devotions’.
_‘Ex Voto: Fractured Devotions’ i_s an artistic exploration of identity, absence, and resilience. Rooted in the Italian Ex Voto tradition, my work transforms devotion into action. A vacant crib, suspended body fragments, symbols of longing, faith, and agency. Living with endometriosis, I faced the impossibility of motherhood. In Berlin, I moved beyond prayer to attempt IVF. The empty cradle marks both loss and transformation. This installation invites reflection on memory, heritage, and the courage to act beyond faith, exploring how identity is shaped by what we offer, leave behind, and hope to become.
YunXuan Yang
Country: Taiwan.
Mediums: Videography.
Artwork: ‘Witches Can’t Fly’.
‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.’ Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex. (1949)
Womanhood is not innate but constructed, a value assigned rather than an essence possessed. This work reflects the perspective of East Asian women navigating the process of unbinding identity in an avant-garde Western city like Berlin. It is not just a monologue of gender but a reflection that transcends age, race, and class. If we strip away the identity that society has imposed upon us—does the I still remain?
Tatiana Bulanova
Country: Russia.
Mediums: Acrylic cube, prints on foils.
Artwork: ‘Hands On’.
A woman's body, though it may seem fragile, carries immense resilience—it endures illness, exhaustion, harsh labor, and the relentless fight for self-expression. These struggles shape us, making each story unique while weaving deeper connections between us. Much like Berlin, a city that embraces transformation and reinvention.
The imagery evokes a gathering around a fire, a symbol of warmth and belonging in a newfound home—a place where shared experiences forge precious human connections.
A glimpse of what was happening in the gallery opening:
