The exhibition also highlights the ways Lewis uses space and architecture as part of her work. Light, shadow, and sound are not just backdrops but active elements that shape the performance and the viewer’s experience. Visitors move through the rooms noticing how bodies interact with the environment, how gestures leave traces, and how moments of stillness can feel full of meaning. In this way, the exhibition becomes more than a presentation of works. It is a place to feel, to reflect, and to sense the layers of history and emotion that unfold in real time.

In the atrium, her new piece Wayward Chant unfolds. Figures appear and vanish. Shadows stretch across the walls while sounds hum and voices echo through the space. Movements repeat, shift, and sometimes almost disappear, leaving traces that linger in the mind. Visitors encounter fleeting gestures, subtle interactions, and unexpected moments of stillness. On 28 and 29 November the piece will be presented as a full evening performance, offering an intensified experience where light, sound, and movement converge.

Other works in the exhibition trace memory, resistance, and survival in different forms. Some are quiet and reflective, inviting close attention. Others are intense, almost confronting, combining film, installation, and live performance to show how history flows into the present. Dancers repeat, pause, and return, making the exhibition a living rehearsal as much as a display. Scattered throughout the rooms, books selected by Lewis and her collaborators offer another layer of engagement, giving visitors time to think, explore, and connect with the ideas behind the work.

Throughout the exhibition the body becomes a space for reflection and dialogue. Visitors notice how movement, gesture, and voice carry traces of personal and collective histories. Sometimes these moments are quiet, subtle, and almost easy to miss. Other times they are intense, demanding attention and holding the weight of experience. The spaces between performers and audience, between sound and image, create openings for thought and feeling, where the eye and the ear can linger. A glance, a pause, a whispered phrase, or the echo of a gesture can build into a profound sense of connection. Visitors move through the rooms at their own pace, encountering moments that feel familiar and others that surprise or unsettle. The exhibition does not offer simple answers or easy resolutions. Instead it invites viewers to slow down, to notice the small and fleeting, and to remain attentive to histories, emotions, and experiences that might otherwise pass unseen. In this way the exhibition becomes a living conversation, unfolding between art, space, and the people who inhabit it, a space where reflection and engagement can continue long after one leaves.

Curated by Nora Swantje Almes with Alexandra Philippovskaya, I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR… is not just about seeing. It is about listening. Feeling. Bearing witness.

Ligia Lewis: I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR…
16.10.202518.1.2026
Location: Gropius Bau, Berlin
Address: Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin
Tickets