22.06.2025
11:00 – 18:00
THE INHALE BEFORE – Intervention by Jessica Ostrowicz
Part of the festival programme 10 YEARS – 10 DAYS! to mark the 10th anniversary of Kunsthaus Dahlem
About the Project
The two works from british artist Jessica Ostrowicz invite stillness within motion and attention within transition. They create space to linger quietly aware, before crossing into what comes next.
Nestled in the doorway Sill addresses the crossing into the immediate future, into the moment just within our grasp. Embedded within the flaws of the split tulipwood are small, symbolic offerings of stones, wax, honey, historically used to bless or protect the home and memory. This practice recalls a Jewish tradition of burying objects beneath the threshold in a gesture of safeguarding and sanctifying the home. Visitors are invited to walk through this frame, becoming conscious of their own passage and the serenity of lingering consciously within that moment. They may take one of small texts printed on paper offered in the frame. Each sheet offers a quiet meditation, a route through and around Kunsthaus Dahlem.
In the exhibition hall the floor tiles of Threshold draw attention to the body’s relationship with the ground beneath it. The tiles cast in jesmonite and layered repeatedly with alkyd and graphite, spell the word “threshold” in braille. The tactile language revealing itself only to those who step with care. The piece reminds of the moment before motion, the pause before the foot descends. It asks everyone to become conscious of crossing, seeing the next step not just as movement, but as meaning. Visitors may find a small stone outside and leave it beside the tiles, honoring the Jewish tradition of laying stones at gravesides in a practice of memory and presence. Over the day the stones left by visitors might form a quiet collective mark of those who passed through and paused.
Location
Costs and Tickets
All anniversary events are free of charge for all visitors.
Jessica Ostrowicz – Biography
Jessica Ostrowicz is a multidisciplinary artist based in London. She studied Fine Arts in Dresden and Contemporary Art Practice with a focus on Critical Practice at the Royal College of Art in London. In her works on paper, installations, sculptures, and films, she engages with transgenerational trauma as well as possibilities for processing and restitution. She reflects on themes of belonging and what home means for people “who have been displaced, uprooted, or confined”. Since 2023, Ostrowicz has been working at HMP Spring Hill, a men’s prison – first as a prison lecturer, and since March 2025 as an Artist in Residence, supported by the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and the Rothschild Foundation.
IMAGE GALLERY
