Shared Campus – The Afterlife of Artworks in the Age of International Art Biennales International Summer School Berlin

5 – 22 August 2025

I have been selected to take part in the 2025 Shared Campus International Summer School in Berlin (5 – 22 August), which unfolded across the city in dialogue with the Berlin Biennale’s theme on fugitivity. The program explored mobility, learning through encounters shaped by movement, resistance and conversation, and how art lives in the everyday experiences.

We were each given a notebook to record reflections, but instead of writing or sketching, I chose to develop a series of five small, experimental, ephemeral sculptures titled: Humble Shelters, 2025. This decision came from a desire to expand the traditional diary format and work materially with what I was experiencing.

One of the Biennale’s themes, fugitivity, led me towards transfiguration, a notion resonant with my childhood practice of assembling creatures from discarded scraps, toys and organic matter. Sculptures in retrospect, that served as tools of imagination and escape.

In Berlin, I revised this early instinct, through gathering remnants, from the sites we passed through – chewing gum, rusted broken lock, wood chips, shells, acorns, beer bottle caps, nails, strands of my own hair etc. Assembled on the go, these became humble, fragile constellations, charged with the residue of time, place and the body. Each sculpture act simultaneously as archive and escape, positioned in the tension between the everyday and imagination as both intimate and site-responsive. My assembling approach was strongly influenced by Yuji Agematsu’s zip: 04.01.20 . . . 04.30.20, 2020, 2020, where collection and arrangement function as both record and transformation.

The presentation of these works was equally important. Inspired by Robert Smithson’s site/non-site model, which explores how fragments and residues of the everyday landscape can be carried into the gallery as conceptual maps of experience as place; and by David Hammon’s unannounced interventions, such as Untitled (Knobkerry), 1994, I adopted a guerrilla-style mode of exhibiting. My sculptures appeared in spaces such as Sophiensaele, Fahrbereitschaft Haubrok, Former Courthouse Lehrter StraBe, and Facher Gallery, parallel to the Biennale or in isolation, where they became the only works present. These temporary shows were witnessed only by chance, their transience central to their meaning. Art here was inseparable from its act of display: momentary, residual and intimate. In this sense, my project was a kind of playful archaeology and embodied transfiguration: reworking fragments of the overlooked into temporary constellations that respond to memory, home, movement, location, time and space.

Fig.1: Group photograph of participants, Shared Campus Summer School, Berlin 2025. Taken at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin. Photograph by the author.

Fig.2: Yuji Agematsu, zip: 04.01.20 . . . 04.30.20, 2020, 2020, mixed media in cigarette pack cellophane wrappers (30 units) on wood backed acrylic shelf, latex paint wrappers, each approximately 2.5 × 2.25 × 1 inches, shelving unit: 26.5 × 34.25 × 5.25 inches. Photo by Stephen Faught. Courtesy of the artist and Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York.

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Overall, while this series may initially appear as a departure from my Unit 3 research, I see strong continuity in curiosity towards materials, processes, and the ritual of repeated small gestures. At the same time, the works extended my interest in ephemeral, small-scale sculptural vehicles rooted in memory and return, while sharpening my focus on imagination – not only remembrance but as active transfiguration. This experience has deepened my understanding of how site, material, and display can merge, and it will continue to inform the evolution of my practice.

From a professional perspective, it was also a phenomenal opportunity to network globally across disciplines of art, design, curation, exchanging perspectives, ideas, and interests, while establishing connections and meaningful friendship.

Rita Veres, Humble Shelters, 2025

Fig.4: Rita Veres, The things we leave behind, 2025. Miniature sculpture assemblage. Rusted-broken lock, sticker, cotton string, plastic toy, acorns, shells, light&shadow. Dimensions variable. Shown at Facher Gallery, Berlin.

Fig.5: Rita Veres, Nest, 2025. Miniature sculpture assemblage. Own collected hair from my hairbrush, rubber band, cigarette cellophane. 10 x 10 x 2.5 cm. Shown inside of a WWII bullet hole at Former Courthouse Lehrter StraBe, Berlin.

Fig.6: Rita Veres, ASexual Juggling Identities, 2025. Miniature, hanging sculpture assemblage. Acorns, strand of own hair. 5 x 1.5 cm. Shown at Fahrbereitschaft Haubrok, Berlin.

Fig.7: Rita Veres, Dream of the Endless, 2025. Miniature sculpture assemblage. Own collected hair, artificial black mesh fabric, wood cube, red paint. 25 x 10 x 2.5 cm. Shown at Sophiensaele, Berlin.

Fig.8: Rita Veres, Ephemeral Chalice (cup of life), 2025. Miniature sculpture assemblage. Beer bottle cap, nail, chewing gum, wood chip, artificial flower. 15 x 10 x 5 cm. Shown at Generator Berlin Mitte.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alloway, L. (1980) Robert Smithson: Sculpture. New York: Cornell University Press, pp. 41 – 45.

Bomb Magazine (2022) Microscopic city: Yuji Agwmatsu Interviewed. Art created from walks through New York City. Available at: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/2022/03/14/microscopic-city-yuji-agematsu-interviewed/ (Accessed: 17 July 2025).

Filipovic, E. (2017) ‘David Hammons, Untitled (Knobkerry), 1994’ in E. Filipovic (ed.) The artist as curator: an anthology. London, Koenig Books Publishing, pp.261 – 281.