Miranda Devita Kistler | Irene Gutiérrez Torres
Sedimented Stories
23.04. - 29.05.2026
 
For the exhibition Sedimented Stories, G10 Projektraum invites the artists Miranda Devita Kistler and Irene Gutiérrez Torres, who both explore migration, memory and the ways in which experience is inscribed into images and materials. The exhibition title refers to geological processes such as deposition, stratification and erosion, and thus to an understanding of memory and experience as something that condenses, shifts, and transforms over time. between movement, freedom, threat, and immobility. What unfolds is a polyphonic structure in which experiences overlap, fragment, and condense into a complex, collective representation. ABCeuta is part of the five-year research project Reel Borders (PI: Prof. Kevin Smets), funded by the European Research Council, which is based at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and focuses also on the Irish and Turkish-Syrian borders.
            At G10, Miranda Devita Kistler presents her body of work Batu dan Banjir, in which she explores different forms of erosion: both those occurring physically in nature and those that inscribe themselves into memory and family histories. At the centre of the exhibition hangs a large tapestry, surrounded by several photographs. The works are based on private photographs from her Indonesian grandmother’s archive, which are damaged by recurring f loods. The motifs of the photographs are sometimes clearly visible, at other times only faintly: they depict special ceremonies, celebrations, and people from Kistler’s family in Indonesia. Across the images, abstract discolorations become visible; traces of water that have inscribed themselves into the photographs. Like a filter, these patterns lie between what was once experienced and its present-day perspective. The water, which seeped uncontrollably into the photographs, intervened in the motifs and thus became an agent.
            For her tapestry Ibu dan Anak, Kistler translates a family photograph into textile form. The result is a dynamic, fragmented surface in which threads overlap, intertwine and retain the traces of the original motif. In several areas, the threads hang loose, tracing the movement of the water. In Kistler’s works, motion and transformation manifest not only as material processes but also as biographical and cultural shifts. In her works, water functions as a central force: it erodes, it deposits new traces, and becomes a metaphor for migration, cultural change, and the gradual fading of memory.

Similarly, Irene Gutiérrez Torres’ participatory film project ABCeuta: the Alphabet of the Border can be understood as a multi-layered structure of experiences and narratives. The 26 short films presented in R15 were co-produced by the filmmaker together with 13 Moroccan cross-border women in Ceuta – a Spanish enclave on the North African coast on the Strait of Gibraltar. The films open up a plurality of perspectives on their lives following the tightening of border regimes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a period of three months, Nora, Fati, Basmae, Laila, Lakbira Ijamai, Irene, Hafida, Khadija, Charifa, Malika, Selma, Rabia, Rafika and Fatima became artistic agents themselves, articulating both the physical and psychological dimensions of the border: experiences of illegality and fear emerge alongside moments of agency and resistance.
            Here, too, water becomes a recurring point of reference, oscillating between movement, freedom, threat, and immobility. What unfolds is a polyphonic structure in which experiences overlap, fragment, and condense into a complex, collective representation. ABCeuta is part of the five-year research project Reel Borders (PI: Prof. Kevin Smets), funded by the European Research Council, which is based at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and focuses also on the Irish and Turkish-Syrian borders.

Miranda Devita Kistler (*1999 in Switzerland) completed her studies in photography at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague in 2024. Her final project, ‘Batu dan Banjir’, was recognised as the best graduate exhibition by the Ron Mandos Gallery in Amsterdam. Her work also received the Swiss Design Award in 2025 and was exhibited at Art Basel as part of this initiative.

Irene Gutiérrez Torres (Ceuta) is a documentary filmmaker from Ceuta. She obtained her PhD in 2026 from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M). Prior to this, she studied Spanish Film Studies at the International Film School of San Antonio de los Baños (EICTV) in Cuba, where she later served as codirector of the Master’s programme in Documentary Film.

The Exhibition is part of the DTdF 2026
Text: Carolina Maddè & Rhea Dehn Tutosaus 
Photography: Jonas Eikhoff
Edit: Janosch Boerckel 
Graphic: Lukas Rudolph