Peggy Atherton, David Claerbout, Marcus Coates, Nick Crowe & Ian Rawlinson, Tacita Dean, Folke Köbberling, Giuseppe Penone, Pope.L, Nika Radić, Jessica Segall, Uýra Sodoma, Zheng Bo
Curator: Simon Faithfull
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
At KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, the group exhibition An Intimacy with Strangers brings together artists whose works explore the fragile and deeply entangled relationships between humans and the countless other species that inhabit the planet alongside us.
Curated by Simon Faithfull, the exhibition unfolds across Maschinenhaus M1 through video, photography, sculpture and installation, examining how intimacy might emerge between human and non human forms of life. Rather than positioning nature as something distant or separate, the exhibition proposes coexistence as a condition of survival, asking whether humans are capable of living not simply beside other species, but with and within them.
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
The exhibition takes inspiration from the ideas of evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, whose radical theories challenged conventional understandings of evolution by emphasising symbiosis, cooperation and interdependence over competition alone. Her concept of “planetmates” resonates throughout the exhibition, shaping a vision of life built on interconnectedness rather than hierarchy.
Through often poetic and quietly unsettling works, the participating artists reflect on the contradictions of humanity’s relationship with the living world. Moments of tenderness, care and curiosity appear alongside systems of domination, extraction and control. The exhibition acknowledges the profound dependence humans have on other organisms while confronting the destructive structures through which coexistence has historically been organised.
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
A central element of the project is Faithfull’s lecture performance Explaining Taxonomy to a Bird, originally developed for the Berlin Museum of Natural History and restaged at KINDL. In the work, the artist questions the scientific impulse to categorise and separate living beings into fixed systems, instead proposing a more fluid understanding of life as a network of mutual dependence and constant exchange.
The exhibition includes works by Tacita Dean, Giuseppe Penone, Pope.L, Zheng Bo and others whose practices engage with ecology, embodiment and the unstable boundaries between species.
Rather than offering a utopian vision of harmony, An Intimacy with Strangers embraces uncertainty and vulnerability. The exhibition suggests that survival in the present moment may depend less on mastery over the natural world and more on learning new forms of reciprocity, attention and coexistence with those we have long considered strangers.
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
Exhibition view: An Intimacy with Strangers, Maschinenhaus M1, KINDL, Berlin, 2026
