The body holds what the mind forgets.

In the convergence of flesh and memory, twelve artists have responded to our open call with works that refuse the false separation between body and archive. Their submissions reveal the human form not as a container for experience, but as experience itself—scarred, tender, resistant, and remembering. In body//archives, we encounter bodies that speak in languages the mind cannot always translate: the language of gesture frozen in clay, of scars that map professional histories, of touch that becomes texture, of ritual that transforms trauma into collective witness.

I. Boundaries and Transgressions

How does the body navigate systems that limit or expose it — from institutions to infrastructures, from gender to labour? These works explore how the body contorts within (or against) structures it did not choose.

Orianna Catton, Flesh Cube

“Flesh Cube” weaves nylon, steel, and sound into a fragile skin—stretched, embodied, inhabited. The body moves within, veiled and exposed in the tension of a space that was never made to hold it. Echoes of inner reflections on the marginalised experience drift through clamouring halls. A meditation on vulnerability, queer visibility, and isolation, the performance evokes the quiet struggle to feel at home within oneself.

Anna Alexia Papadopoulou, You will be ok, 2025

This work is about today’s man trauma and his relationship with the body, desire, his present and how adapted he is to the “game” of acceleration and his future “wants”. However, his desire to enjoy the benefits of technology and acceleration cannot be achieved without sacrificing lived time and experiences in the present. This condition extends to all levels of human contact with the world and deprives modern man of real experience. We lose essential contact with space, time, the things that surround us, but also with ourselves and our choices. What place does the body, desire, decay, uncertainty, trauma, memory, asymmetry, slowing down, death… have in such a condition where everything that makes us human is removed in the name of constant readiness? Our body, our mind learns in new paths, but it is not necessary to repeat them as they are. The order here comes out of the chaos and the proposal is hetero-normality. The treatment of this trauma is the new steps, the new synapses. Our personal history is not without reason, it is part of the history of the planet and just as the earth holds a mineral memory, so do bodies narrate the evolution of human experience, the evolution of brain synapses, the creation of the new, the constantly changing, the formation of identities and otherness. Othernesses are versions of reality, components of creation. Movement is not the only version. Standing is a choice as well, as is the intermediate state.

Linda Hoppe, Lebenslauf 2

GR2024 Leben (life) – Lauf (run): the body in motion, the body as record. In Lebenslauf 2, the artist uses their own body as both document and questioning surface. The title, taken from the German word for CV (curriculum vitae), is split open — life-run — suggesting a continuous loop of effort, exposure, and erasure. A standard sheet of A4, a standard format of self-presentation, becomes a site of intimate inscription. The artist prints their professional history directly onto their skin. The location of the print -slightly too intimate, slightly too much invites tension: What are we willing to show, and what must remain obscured? In exhibition, the CV is blurred, the details made unreadable, illegible. Instead, what remains is the gesture of exposure itself, and the unease it brings. What does a CV truly hold? What does it conceal?

What if our histories were shaped not just by job titles and dates, but by scars, silences, and instinct? Each time the artist applies for a new opportunity, Lebenslauf 2 is submitted in place of a traditional CV -a quiet protest, a provocation. And each day, the ink is washed away in the shower, like a ritual of forgetting. But the residue remains, beneath the skin. This work invites reflection on how we present ourselves in professional and institutional frameworks -and what gets left out. The academic gaze, still shaped by norms of beauty, success, and legibility, often flattens the messy, embodied experiences that truly shape us. Is there an academic equivalent to “sex sells”?
What is the cost of exposure, and who profits from the aesthetics of ambition? Lebenslauf 2 sits in the gap between performed identity and private truth. It questions the social scripts of professionalism, the politics of visibility, and the quiet acts of resistance that live in the body long after the ink is gone.

II. Traces of Desire, Touch, and Intimacy

Memory is not always visible. Sometimes it lingers in texture, in absence, in gesture. These artists show how longing and physicality imprint themselves onto skin, space, and self.

Rafael Mesquita, INTIMIDADE 03 - selfportrait 

The body is a map of textures, texture is the memory of touch. The fingers' trace shapes the curves in a gentle glide, an abrupt scrape. It's a shiver that whispers the presence of desires carved into skin and flesh

Konstantina Papantonatou, MARTYRES

The action begins with the reading of poems printed on fabric and hung on trees, reminiscent of Japanese tanzaku. Among clay sculptures, wax votives are lit — silent “witnesses of the self.” The performer uses red soil to mark areas of tension on the body through slow, deliberate gestures. The body becomes a vessel of memory and purification. In the final part, through a ritual procession, participants are led to a nearby hilltop, where they break their own votives — an act of release and engagement in a shared, transformative gesture. Through this site-specific performance, the body became both listener and witness — resonating with stories of exile, silence, care, and survival. Even when the process begins from the personal, it inevitably echoes the collective. Trauma, activated through the artist’s body, is not merely biographical but inscribed in a symbolic and social field. Through performance, it is given form, presence, and shared experience. In a place that once served as refuge, exile, and martyrdom, the act becomes one of attentive presence — a ritual of listening and proximity. Ritual is what bridges the personal and the collective: a moving body creating space for silence; objects placed not for display but for transformation. The performance proposes a form of repair — not to “solve” trauma, but to inhabit it with honesty. It opens a space where what is repressed — memory, fear, guilt, tenderness — can emerge and be held.

Fani Koulocheri, "And Now We Wait" 

Fani Koulocheri grapples with processes of health and healing, focusing on the patient's perspective- specifically, how individuals perceive their illness and the stages they go through to receive healing. Drawing from personal experience, she engages deeply with the subject, offering an intimate and nuanced exploration of its manifestations. Presenting approaches like supplication, medication, and denial, we embrace the viewpoint of people toward their health condition. F.K. captivates the viewer with intricate patterns and symbolic elements not only through looking at a totality but also compelling them to observe closely and engage through an individualistic approach that depends on personal experience. In modern society, discussing health issues publicly remains taboo, often carrying negative connotations. Fani aims to shift this perception by fostering a more positive discourse. Through her art, she seeks to glorify and adorn an aspect of life that is frequently considered grotesque or unsightly. This pursuit of attention is reflected not only in the vibrant materials she employs, but also in the diversity of organs and medical cases she addresses. By embracing a wide range of conditions, her work increases the likelihood that viewers will find personal resonance within it, promoting a sense of connection and dialogue. 

(Clara) Yuxiao Zhu, Beneath the Surface 

"Beneath the Surface" is a brooch that reflects on the hidden struggles and resilience of women. The front features a scar-like brass structure, symbolizing physical and societal wounds that linger despite outward healing. On the reverse, small resin hands pry open the scar, representing challenges such as childbirth, inequality, and physical suffering. This piece invites reflection on the unseen burdens carried by women and the strength required to confront them. Craftsmanship The scar is shaped by hammering brass into an uneven surface. Resin is molded into small hands that are arranged to pull apart the scar. Nail gel polish is applied for coloring and structural support.

III. Landscapes of the Body / Bodies as Landscape

What happens when we stop seeing the body as separate from its environment? These works dissolve that boundary — merging skin with sediment, presence with place.

Despina Mykoniati, Brain

Arash Mozhdekanlu, study of a man with the ring , 2025 

In the corner, a presence remains unseen, and a feeling forever lost. 

Despoina Douzi, Body Landscapes

Body Landscapes is a digital performance-video that treats the body as a terrestrial surface — a landscape eroded by memories, trauma, and time. The human form is distorted, disassembled, and reshaped in a space where flesh resembles rock, sand, or mud. The body is not represented but revealed as trace. Through its deconstruction, the work reflects on the slow processes of decay and endurance, on identity as something formed through external pressures and internal shifts. A political reading of embodied existence, Body Landscapes posits the earth not as background, but as the very body transforming into a vessel of history and experience. 

Melanija Ilguna, The Bathroom

As soon as I moved out, I was met with a whole new world of solitude. One of the most vivid memory I have from those times is the cold bathroom, with a window looking right into another house. Small space, with very cold floors and ice cold water with such a harsh lighting I coulnd't run away from. Indeed a way to feel blue 

Vira Yakymchuk, Dream on the water, 2025

 What does it mean to archive a body that keeps changing?

Across media, geography, and experience, these twelve artists ask not how to contain the body, but how to stay with it. To trace what it carries. To hold space for what it resists. To record what memory alone can’t hold. We thank all the artists who submitted to this first open call.