"Deep Skin" Group Exhibition

Featuring works by Chucky Schuster, Maja Smrekar, Patrícia J. Reis, Yasemin Engin

Exhibition Opening: 23 May, 18:00 - 21:00
Exhibition Dates: 23 May - 3 June 2025
Artist Talk & Gathering: 31 May, 17.00-19.00
Venue: ORF-Funkhaus, Argentinierstrasse 30A, 1040 Vienna / Never At Home, 1st Floor

"Deep Skin" invites viewers to explore the intimate relationship between physical form, psychological experience and the permeable boundaries between skin, body, human, and non-human. Through immersive, tactile, and multimedia installations, the works by Chucky Schuster, Maja Smrekar, Patrícia J. Reis, and Yasemin Engin open up new dimensions of bodily and emotional awareness. Each piece reflects on how physical surfaces and unseen forces shape identity, interaction, and connection.

The exhibition showcases a diverse range of works from both emerging and established women artists and creatives. It features AI-driven installations, interactive media, and video art. By bringing together these names from Vienna and various regions, this collaboration fosters intercultural exchange and broadens the horizons of digital expression. It aims to inspire audiences to explore the evolving intersections of creativity and innovation.

Patrícia J. Reis’s “Underneath the Skin Another Skin” uses interactive technology to engage the audience in a multisensory experience, transforming memory, perception, and tactile interaction into a landscape of personal discovery. 

Chucky Schuster’s “Echoes of the Unseen Self” captures the unease and vulnerability of our internal struggles becoming visible, using distorted visages to reveal the tension between concealment and exposure. 

Maja Smrekar’s “K-9_Topology” explores the symbiosis between human and animal and between body and technology, blending personal mythologies and long-term care for her creations to reflect a deeply interconnected system of beings and processes. 

Yasemin Engin's short film trilogy explores the body as an archive of trauma, a site of social control, and a medium of self-acceptance. Using clay as a metaphor, the films examine the interplay between body, identity, and transformation.

These works explore the complex layers beneath the skin, broadening the concept of self into a shared experiential reality that challenges our perceptions of physical, emotional, and species-specific boundaries. "Deep Skin" becomes an invitation to question how our inner lives echo through our bodies and how connection with the non-human world reshapes our embodied existence.