Zsofia Samodai's exhibition Shredding Layers brings together the author's work that addresses bureaucracy as a form of quiet violence—one that operates through paper, repetition, and internalization rather than spectacle.

The project begins with a desire to sculpt a mask from accumulated German bureaucratic letters, treating administration not as neutral information but as a material that piles up, presses down, and shapes subjectivity. Encounters across contexts sharpen this perspective: the discovery of a pre-written housing contract sold casually in Taiwan exposes bureaucracy as a commodified script, while German administration demands endurance, compliance, and prolonged uncertainty. These moments point to a realization that bureaucracy does not only regulate life externally. Through fear of error, delay, and misclassification, it installs itself internally. Subjects learn to anticipate the institution, to discipline themselves in advance. The violence lies in this implantation: administration becoming a mental structure, carried and reproduced within the body.

The exhibition will include a training station on “embodying institutions”, walking visitors through their experiences of infrastructural failure that makes collective presence impossible, as well as imagining ways to literally combat institutional disfunction. At the opening, several artists, scientist and social organizer will present their proposals of pressure points against oppressive infrastructures.

Mehringplatz 20

Mehringplatz 20 is a bedroom gallery that showcases artistic and para-artistic practices proposing different social arrangements then the ones we currently live. The installations blend with the living space of the curator, who also acts as the cleaner, guard, and programming director of Mehringplatz 20. When exhibitions are on view, visitors can come on Tuesdays between 3pm and 5pm without previous appointment. The space also hosts a small library of books, zines, tools, audio visual equipment, connections, and seeds. Past exhibitions included: Cassie Thornton's installation about whiteness and the destabilizing comforts of Western world called White Hole: A Mythical Celestial Body; Alicja Rogalska's Feast role playing the world after the end of fossil fuel dependency; Bea Xu's science fictional device for telepathy using menstrual blood called Plastic Lattice; or Amy Balkin's People's Archive of Sinking and Melting.

Founded: 2020