This exhibition, bearing the title “Release” is the result of the thirteenth artist residency cycle at bEam arts. Four artists present visual works linked by a common thread: the concept of release, specifically regarding emotion, self-expression, and self-image. Each approach to this theme offers a distinct perspective, rooted in the artist’s own background, while creating space for both reflection and empowerment.

Emma Barber works with mixed media and painted collage, finding great freedom in this approach. Through her work, she tells stories that stem from both internal emotional states and external influences. The series of works she created during her residency at bEam arts explores the relationship between humanity and nature. She addresses the destruction of the natural world, the profound violence inherent in this situation and the grief felt for what is being lost. She plays with the concept of a personified Nature endowed with consciousness, thoughts, and emotions, that finds itself confronted by exploitation, violence, and ruin; it mourns these losses, unable to find any logic or answer for such destruction. Taking it a step further, she articulates a self-evident truth that humanity all too easily forgets: the destruction of the natural world is the destruction of our own selves.

Linda Kutzki’s work is deeply anthropocentric and employs collage techniques, drawing clear influence from the work of Hannah Höch, as well as from Dada and Surrealism. Her creative process begins with an act of destruction, fragmenting existing images to compose something new and distinct from the original. She is interested in the concepts of imperfection and distortion, standing in opposition to the prevailing trend toward the “optimization” of the body and its form, a trend further intensified by the proliferation of visual material generated through artificial intelligence. During her residency at bEam arts, she experimented with large-scale collages. She gathered her materials by walking through the city, taking photographs, and collecting papers and posters encountered along the way. Beyond her core thematic concerns and artistic references, the works she created possess a mosaic-like quality, a characteristic she attributes to her engagement with the city of Thessaloniki.

Rashel van der Schaaf is a filmmaker and poet who uses her chosen mediums to tell stories. Her approach spans documentary, fiction, dance film, video art, and video mapping, ultimately seeking to explore diverse ways of crafting experiences. She is interested in human relationships, encompassing both interconnectedness and the alienation one may feel toward oneself or others. She aims to share her own, highly sensitive perspective on things she finds both inspiring and beautiful or  unsettling. In the works she presents at bEam arts—a video piece and a multimedia installation—she focuses on the act of crying and the tears that result from it. Driven by a deep affinity for the element of water, she explores the aqueous nature of tears, their visual properties, and the way they distort one’s vision, while also recognizing the liberating quality inherent in the act of crying.

In her work, Calla Söderholm utilizes recycled materials,  textiles and plastics as well as the body itself, to create a universe of tactile experiences. With a background in ballet, corporeality serves as a central element of her artistic practice. Drawing from her experience of living with chronic pain in an immunocompromised body, she explores how one might gain a deeper understanding of the body’s internal functions. The body is approached as a site of regeneration, decay, and natural wonder. The work presented in this exhibition consists of a series of objects reminiscent of anatomical models found in medical museums. She also presents three dance costumes, which were used in a video performance featuring dancers from the city.