„Beyond the frenetic drive for growth motivated by

profit and the insatiable thirst of capitalism, are other worlds.

Worlds we dream, worlds we draw, worlds we sing.

Worlds where visions are real, where flowers speak,

and water heals. Worlds we download and upload into

manifested reality“

Extract from Decolonial Healing: In Defense of Spiritual Technologies by Tabita Rezaire in the publication The Sage Handbook of Media & Migration, (2019)

Malwine Stauss and Sophie Utikal decided to escape together into a world of gentleness, where it is possible to be comfortable with fear, loneliness and the unknown.

Stauss allows history and abstactions to merge in her portraits and sculptures. At first the watercolor works and ceramic sculptures seem light and delicate, but on closer inspection one senses a deep strength in the figurative works. At the same time, the works of Malwine Stauss tell of intuition, connection and magical phenomena.

Utikal, is a textile artist whose methodology is to write poetic images, find feelings and then sew them together. Her textile works are handmade and touch on the theme of (personal) transformation – alone or with others. The focus is always on her brown body – this is how Sophie Utikal wants to address those whose bodies are usually not represented
in the full complexity of being: First, second, third generations of migrants in Germany, hybrids who constantly fall up and have to re-found their world.

Text: Sophie Utikal/Malwine Stauss

Edit: Tanya Most