Silke Weißbach’s practice operates at the intersection of material alchemy, emotional resonance, and ecological awareness, creating multi-sensory environments as sites of transformation and healing. She combines biological agents with intangible elements such as light, colour, fragrance, liquids, sound, language, and memory. Central to her research is an exploration of the ontological and epistemological dimensions of materiality—how beings are defined within both living and non-living systems—emphasizing interspecies relationships and the agency of materials.
She incorporates processes such as crystallization, preservation, fermentation, and decay, allowing natural agents to unfold and shape the work over time. Substances like spirulina, agar agar, mother-of-pearl, hyaluronic acid, fabric softener, formula milk, wax, soap, sugar, pomegranate, lichens, seaweed, and rowan serve as both structural and conceptual components. These materials challenge the human-centric perspective, creating a porous, fluid dialogue between the organic and synthetic, the natural and constructed, and the ephemeral and enduring.
Surfaces in Weißbach’s work act as portals—cracks, scars, and tissues become gateways to biological, historical, and cultural existence. Built upon a desire to redirect deeply inherited perceptions of the porous and malleable world, her elements operate between compound and code. These material thresholds function as sites of translation, decoding insights from the past, present, and future while unveiling the interconnection and intra-connection of existence. By allowing these materials to evolve, dissolve, and reconfigure, her work challenges conventional belief systems, restoring relationships with the land and guiding a reconnection to the natural world.
Through this approach, her work resists fixity, existing instead in a constant state of becoming. She embraces the agency of matter, allowing processes such as melting, crystallizing, and decomposing to unfold independently of intention. The integration of scent, touch, and sound further extends this idea, creating an immersive field where perception is heightened beyond the visual. This expanded sensory space invites an embodied engagement, where the boundaries between viewer, material, and environment blur.
By constructing these spaces, Weißbach’s work engages with broader ecological, social, and philosophical dialogues, reflecting on interconnectedness with the material world. It examines the tensions between consumption and preservation, permanence and fragility, artificial and organic. In doing so, it invites a reconsideration of the ways beings navigate, inhabit, and relate to both human and non-human ecologies.
Her work has been recognized internationally, including being shortlisted for the Fellowship with London Bronze Sculpture (2023), where she explored the intersection of language, AI, and craftsmanship, and the Cob Award (2024) for a project investigating the confluence of collective intelligence, bioacoustics, and ecological consciousness. Her ongoing Correspondence (sugar) series, which investigates the evolving properties of organic materials, was added to the Jan van Eyck Future Material Bank (2022). She is currently a fellow with the Leonardo Imagination Program at Arizona State University, a virtual, global initiative bridging art, science, and speculative thinking.
Latest exhibitions include Ember, Informality Gallery, Spinnerei Leipzig (2024), Taking the Light out of the Prism, Lisbon Art Weekend, Duplex Air, Lisbon (2023), Pass Your Tongue Over, Kanister, Hamburg (2023), Uncloud, Former Pieter Baan Centre (2023), Netherlands, BYOB, Bomb Factory, London (2022), Transmission, Bargehouse Oxo Tower, London (2022), Orlando, Ermita de St Pedro, Aracena, Spain (2022)), Materias Incertas, Cultural Institute de Lagos, Portugal (2020),50/50, Fold Gallery, London (2020) and Homegrown, Hauser and Wirth, London (2020).
CV
Studies 2018 – 2020 Royal College of Art: Painting (MA), London 2016 – 2018 University of Fine Arts Hamburg: Sculpture (BA), Hamburg 2013 - 2016 University of Fine Arts, Illustration (BA), Hamburg 2014 Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK), Copenhagen (DEN) (studies abroad)
Exhibitions
2025 Siren Emissaries, Herberger Institute of the Arts, Mesa, Arizona At Midland Road, Informality Gallery, online (g)
2024 Invited: Ember, Informality Gallery, Spinnerei Leipzig (g) Cooperation, Nizza, Berlin (g) Lavender, Hibernation and Neon, curated by Yueh-Ning Lee, Crypt Gallery, London (g) TLC, Greatorex Street Gallery, London (g)
2023 Taking The Light Out Of The Prism, Duplex Gallery, Lisbon Art Weekend, Lisbon (g) Physicaldigitalphysicaldigital, Uncloud, Utrecht (g) Can you hear the Wood whisper, Amsterdam (g) Pass Your Tongue Over, Kanister/Benzene, Hamburg (s)
2022 BYOB, LUX and Bomb Factory, London (g) Working on a Dream, ATP Gallery, London (g) Orlando, Ermita de San Pedro, GrottaAir, Spain (s) RCA Graduates 2020, Bargehouse Gallery, London (g) ESC — EXHIBITION / #2031 AW, VVOOVVA Gallery, online (g)
2021 Rundgang.IO (online), view here RCA Lost and damaged, Somerset house – AVMTV (online), view here
2020 Materias Incertas, Cultural Institute of Lagos, Portugal (g) Mushrooms in the Dark, private members club, London (g) Ghosts That Live Amongst Us, 155a_gallery in East Dulwich, London (g) 50/50 Fold Gallery, London (g) Stutter, BAKIIBAK, Hastings (g) Collaborative Lecture Performance, Salzburg Summer Academy (g) RCA2020 (online), Royal College of Art, London (g) Homegrown, Hauser and Wirth, London (g) A fish you have already caught, London Atmosphere, London (g) Snapshot, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (g)
2019 Plastic Tongue, White House, London (g) Brexhibition, Courtyard Gallery, Royal College of Art, London (g) Work in Progress Show, Royal College of Art, London (g)
2018 Me, Myself and the Possibility of You, Westwerk, Hamburg (g)
2017 It never meant nothing more than it means right now, Gallery Altes Zollamt, Hamburg (g) Benzene, Gallery Rentzelstraße, Hamburg (g) Kunst macht Ärger, Bunkerhill Gallery, Hamburg (g) Beat about the Bush, Gallery K70, Lübeck (s) Elephant and Castle, 2025 Gallery, Hamburg (g) Höhlen von Elephanta, Raum Linksrechts Gallery, Hamburg (g)
2016 Kunst in der Börse, Handelskammer Hamburg, Hamburg (g) add art at BDO, Gallery BDO, Hamburg (d) Overall OAM, Westwerk, Hamburg (g) D/UMBO, U.FO Gallery, Hamburg (d)
Awards, Grants & Scholarship Eaton Grant, London, 2024 Leonardo ASU Imagination Fellowship, Arizona 2024/2025 Shortlisted for Cob Award, Cob Gallery London 2024 Shortlisted for London Bronze Fellowship, London 2023 Shortlisted Somersethouse Creative Fellowship, London 2023 Karl H. Ditze Grant for the Best Project, HAW Hamburg 2014 Erasmus program, scholarship for Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, HAW Hamburg 2014
Publications Ember, Informality Gallery, 2024 RCA2020, Transmissions, 2022 Ghosts That Live Amongst Us, Ed. by Warbling Collective, 2020 50/50, Ed. by Fold Gallery, 2020 Ladies Drawing Club, ISSUE#3, 2020 Höhlen von Elephanta, exhibition catalogue, Ed. by Gallery Raum linksrechts, 2017 Kunst in der Börse, exhibition catalogue, Ed. by Handelskammer Hamburg, 2016 Add Art, exhibition catalogue, Ed. by BDO, 2016 Reportagen, Artist Book, Ed. by UFU Institut Berlin, 2015 Im Rettungsboot der Titanic, Artist Book, Ed. by HAW Hamburg, 2014 Soulmates, Woodcut, Artist Book, Ed. by HAW Hamburg, 2013
Collections Future Material Archive, Jan van Eyck Academy, 2022
Residencies Porthemeor Studio Residency, St. Ives, Cornwall, UK, 2025 Xenia Retreat, UK, 2024 Uncloud, Utrecht, Netherlands, 2023 Duplex Air, Lisbon 2022 Grotta Air, Aracana – Spain, 2022 Salzburg Summer Academy (online). 2020 Casa Tagumerche, La Gomera (Canary Island), 2019 Summer School, Royal College of Art, London, 2017 International Drawing Meeting ArtEZwolle, Ransdaal, Netherlands, 2014