Permeable Condensation

Moving between visibility and disappearance, materiality and flux, Permeable Condensation brings together artistic positions that engage with water as both a physical substance and a carrier of social, political, and affective relations.

As water shifts in form from solid to liquid and gas, this exhibition is dedicated to the states in-between: the moment when the invisible becomes visible, the transition from vapor to droplet, from absence to presence. Works by Eda Aslan, Hanne Darboven, Hans Haacke, Saodat Ismailova, and Helena Uambembe explore processes such as condensation, evaporation, and depletion, understood as expressions of this element that resists fixity of form.

The title of the exhibition, Permeable Condensation, points to a paradox: condensation describes a process of densification, of becoming material, while permeability implies porosity, openness, and transition. In their conjunction, these terms describe a condition in which boundaries become unstable—where what has condensed simultaneously dissolves again, where inside and outside, body and environment, visible and invisible begin to merge. Water is not only a physical phenomenon, but also a medium that carries memory, emotion, and power. The works in the exhibition move between aridity and excess, between control and withdrawal, asking how water shapes landscapes, permeates bodies, and determines political realities.

Water emerges as a substance defined by relationality, one that comes into being only through its connections, circulations, and transitions. In its ability to move between physical states, water renders visible processes that elude linear control. Across its chemical, scientific, and political entanglements, water is both essential and epistemic: it stores, transmits, and transforms meanings, affects, and power relations. Its distribution is uneven, its access regulated, its dynamics often unpredictable. From this perspective, water is an active component of social, ecological, and economic systems in which fragility and dependency are inextricably intertwined. At its core, the exhibition centers on the tension between liquidity and power: water as a life-sustaining resource, as a connective element, and at the same time as a politically and ecologically contested good.

Curated by Paula Kommoss and Talia Walther

Events
Guided Tour: July 18, 2–3pm, with Paula Kommoss

Kids’ workshop : July 18, 2:30–3:30pm, with Thane Eltze
Overbeck Gesellschaft

HYDRO-HYPNOSIS: July 18, 4–4:45pm, performance by Jaq Lisboa
St. Petri zu Lübeck

Guided Tour: July 23, 6–7pm, with Talia Walther
St. Petri zu Lübeck