The Shape of Us
On the Radical Intimacy of Mutation
Artists: Arijit Bhattacharyya, So Young Park, Maya Erin Masuda, Jaewon Kim, Youjin Yi, Kah Bee Chow, Iden Sungyoung Kim, Daria Kim
Venue: Kunstpunkt Berlin | Raum für Aktuelle Kunst, Schlegelstraße 6, 10115 Berlin
Opening: Thursday, 6 August 2026, 7 pm
Performance: Gestated Leak by So Young Park, 8 pm
Exhibition: 7–23 August 2026, Thursday–Sunday, 3–7 pm
Artist talk: Inflamed & Queer — Maya Erin Masuda, 13 August 2026, 6–8 pm
Finissage: Sunday, 23 August 2026, 7 pm
Performance: Mycelia-phonics (live electronics) by Gyuchul Moon
In every breath, in every movement, we mutate together – with plants, with insects, with the earth, and they with us. Life follows no pre-programmed algorithm, as the theorist Karen Barad wrote in 2012. Rather, "electrons, molecules, brittlestars, jellyfish, coral reefs, dogs, rocks, icebergs, plants, asteroids, snowflakes, and bees stray from all calculable paths, making leaps here and there."
The Shape of Us speaks precisely of these unexpected leaps of life that touch brings about, and takes mutation as a possible form of intimacy for a new way of co-habitation. Wherever bodies meet – human, plant, mineral, or technological – a fundamental entanglement arises that irrevocably alters the form and state of all those involved.
The invited artists explore in their practices this threshold and tension between the human and the more-than-human, between intimacy and toxicity, as well as between resilience and vulnerability. The artistic positions in the exhibition space circle one another, entering into relationships that activate, unsettle, and animate their surroundings. Through multimedia, performative, and research-based approaches, the works pose the question: who will we be when we finally abandon the illusion of our isolation?
During the opening, So Young Park performs Gestated Leak and activates her installation. Translating the repetitive movements of the 3D printer into voice, breath, and bodily gesture, Park carries the act of printing beyond the machine into an ongoing process of gestation.
The exhibition is part of an ongoing collaboration between Kunstpunkt Berlin | Raum für Aktuelle Kunst and curator Keumhwa Kim, creating a platform for artists with a diasporic background from East, South, and Central Asia and strengthening the visibility of their interdisciplinary, multimedia practices.
