About the work:

The work was created at the end of the artist’s residency at CCA Berlin in spring 2023, taking a corner of space from her solo exhibition as backdrop, referential site and sampling material. The photo underneath shows one of the new works from her ongoing sculptural series Flesh in Stone, a casted pregnant torso, half superimposed by penciled contours and hand-traced curves tilted slightly at an angle, like a ghost twisting away from flesh, or faded memories of a mother’s body. The resulting image seems much more transformative than self-referential or derivative, its distinct doubleness capable of suspending our gaze in a realm of in-between – between formality and materiality, shape and presence, body as a thing and its lived experiences and nooks of intimacy. On the other wall, an almost indiscernible still image from a video work hints at a pair of moving hands frozen into a caress of light. The perpendicular angle as a motif repeats itself in the hands, the meeting of walls, the angle of the turning body and the layering of papers, the geometric clarity of which co-exists with a permanent soft blur that evades visibility, as if we can only perceive the work via feeling and touching.

About the artist:

Yu Ji (b. 1985, Shanghai, China) is known for her diverse practice that spans sculpture, installation, performance and video. Much of her work is motivated by the investigation of the concept of place and its relation to body, and the capacity for specific loci to be charged with geographical and historical narratives. She frequently conducts field research to reflect upon and interrogate the place of the body within everyday environments.

About the work:

“Yes, I am afraid” (2024) is a silkscreen print based on a unique drawing made with charcoal and pigment on paper. The drawing was created for the artist’s solo exhibition A CERTAIN DEATH/THE SWAMP at CCA Berlin in September 2023. It is set amidst a dystopian environment composed of clay prints, metal frames, muddy soil, paintings, ceramics, video and sound. Each element embodies a facet of the total climate the exhibition seeks to evoke, channeling the violence and (re)generative force of water, swamp and rainstorm to reveal the deep connection between the systemic brutality of colonialism and the disproportionate impacts of climate change across geopolitical borders. 

In this context, “Yes, I am afraid” serves as a focal point of expression, both verbally and visually. The frantic, stuttering repetition of the phrase resembles a cry echoed by countless bodies, united by their bold admission of fear in the face of planetary crisis, and their mutual recognition of each other’s vulnerability and incompleteness. As a stand-alone work, “Yes, I am afraid” plays with the legibility of text and the gesture of writing, offering a polyrhythmic score to thicken the meanings of language and its (in)capacity to convey emotion. “Yes, I am afraid” poses an open question at the heart of Jota Mombaça’s artistic practice: Could a shared anxiety of annihilation prepare the ground for the emergence of a shared hope?

About the artist:

Jota Mombaça is an interdisciplinary artist whose work unfolds from poetry, critical theory, queer studies, political intersectionality, anticolonial justice, and the redistribution of violence. Mombaça defines herself as a trans racialized bicha, born and raised in Natal, in the northeast of Brazil. In recent years, Mombaça has been investigating the relationship between monstrosity and humanity and the tensions between ethics, aesthetics, art, and politics in the knowledge productions of the global south. Through performance, critical fabulations, and situational strategies of knowledge production, the artist intends to rehearse the end of the world as we know it and speculate on what comes after we dislodge the Modern-Colonial subject off its podium. Her work has been presented in several institutional frameworks, such as the 59th Biennale de Venezia (2022), the 32nd and 34th São Paulo Biennales (2016 and 2020/2021), the 22nd Sydney Biennale (2020), the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018), and the 46th Salon Nacional de Artistas in Colombia (2019), and as part of exhibitions and programs organized by Serpentine Galleries, London; Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin; Madre Napoli; de Appel, Amsterdam; and the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). She is currently working at Free University Berlin with a scholarship from Stiftung Mercator.

About the work:

The photo was taken in Kreuzberg, Berlin, in November 2024, as Rene Matić was preparing their solo exhibition at CCA Berlin. Titled AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH, the exhibition—recently shortlisted for the 2025 Turner Prize—featured a new series of photographs, installations, and a sound work.

As a stand-alone image, this edition offers a familiar glimpse of Berlin’s landscape: the city’s long-standing tradition of graffiti as a vehicle for political protest and revolutionary expression. The call to “Free All Antifas,” painted along the canal, stems from a transnational leftist movement demanding the release of imprisoned activists and political dissidents across Europe. In the context of the West’s ongoing democratic unraveling—marked by the political fragmentation of both the left and the liberal center—the image gains layers of meaning. The imperative to “free” something or anything today feels increasingly contested, easily distorted, and vulnerable to misappropriation.

Matić’s sensitivity to the subtle grammars of a place—the signs, symbols, and undercurrents that speak beneath the surface—is what distinguishes them as one of the most brilliant young artists of their generation. This snapshot freezes a moment that feels defiant and at risk: a fleeting echo of resistance, a yearning for freedom. It’s an image from the near present, yet already tinged with loss, as if belonging to a bygone past. The reflection of the words in the river mirrors the instability of truth in today’s political theater. Reality appears inverted. Where do we go from here?

About the artist:

Rene Matić (b. 1997, Peterborough, UK) is a London-based artist and writer whose practice spans across photography, film, and sculpture, converging in a meeting place they describe as “rude(ness)”—an evidencing and honouring of the in-between. Matić draws inspiration from dance and music movements such as Northern soul, Ska, and 2-Tone as a tool to delve into the complex relationship between West Indian and white working-class culture in Britain, whilst privileging queer/ing intimacies, partnerships and pleasure as modes of survival.

Since 2017, Rene Matić has participated in group and solo exhibitions at Saatchi Gallery, South London Gallery, Sadie Coles HQ, Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, and Kunstverein Gartenhaus, Vienna among other places. In 2023, Rene Matić had their first US solo exhibition in the gallery Chapter in New York. Their work has been included in the public collection of many international institutions, such as Tate, Foundation Louis Vuitton, UK Government Art Collection, Arts Council Collection, Martin Parr Foundation, and South London Gallery etc.