verwurzelt? rooted in change!

A groupexhibition on dynamic networks. Artists: Ieva Saudargaitė Douaihi, Meena Alyassin, Larissa Zauser, Josephine Scheuer. Curated by Lorenza Kaib & Vilma Klingaite. Venue: Artists Unlimited Gallery (Bielefeld)

Do we have to feel uprooted if we can belong to many places at once?

The group exhibition explores the idea of moving roots that extend across time and place, creating new connections between people and their environments. Rather than being understood as a static form of anchoring, rootedness is approached as something social, communicative, and ecological – something that can travel across distances, like seeds carried by the wind to take root elsewhere.

Like plants, we too form networks that connect us to people and places, creating a social ecosystem of belonging. The participating artists approach this idea from different perspectives – through sounds and noises, imaginary or unfamiliar places we come to make our own, and light that accompanies us wherever we go.

The Exhibition has been made possible through the generös support of Sparkasse Bielefeld and Staff Stiftung.

Meena Alyassin explores processes of re-rooting in her country of origin, as well as the question of how it might be possible to return to one’s own roots. The artist visited different places across Iraq, revisiting landscapes and sites that are intertwined with her personal history. The exhibition presents photographs from the artist’s series I know this light, which focuses on light as a central motif. For Alyassin, light is something that remains even when places disappear or change. It is an element that connects people to a place and gives them a sense of belonging and rootedness. At the same time, the same light shines across generations, allowing it to function as a form of inherited memory, return and as a means of creating continuity.

Ieva Saudargaitė Douaihi explores the coexistence of places and people. For the exhibition, the artist presents a new sound installation, Partials, Beirut (2026). The installation releases fragments of sound recorded in Beirut. These acoustic traces range from the sounds of living beings and traffic noise to the sounds of construction sites and demolition work, as well as surveillance drones and airstrikes. The work brings together the sounds that shape and accompany the artist’s everyday life in the city. At the same time, these sounds point to their particular ability to reactivate memories and a sense of belonging. Even when encountered elsewhere, they can mentally transport us back to the places from which they originate. The installation thus creates a space in which sound can be experienced as a carrier of memory, identity, and a connection to place.

Through Josephine Scheuer’s work Synched Dreams (2026), the non-existent city of Ascazio is brought to life through the imagination of its visitors. Using language and sound, the artist constructs imagined spaces. Visitors can experience the audio guide both within the exhibition and as an audio-guided experience in the city. In doing so, spaces emerge through language, memory, and individual imagination. In the artist’s words, listeners build their own inner landscapes—an act of auditory choreography that can be liberating, as each space is shaped by the individual themselves. The work directly engages with the exhibition’s theme, exploring the idea that every person moves through the city in their own way, perceives it differently, and develops a sense of belonging within it. Personal experiences, memories, and imaginings thus become an essential part of the spatial experience. Another work by Scheuer, drawing (2025), can be encountered in public space on the Artists Unlimited billboard.

In Larissa Zauser’s initially photographic series Im Blick der Zirbe (2024–), she turns her attention to specific places that represent a sense of security and longing for individuals. During her time as a fellow at the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, she developed the work further into moving image while also shifting its focus towards the often slow process of “making oneself at home.” The work reflects on her own temporary move to Paris, experiences of alienation, and the process of making these places her own. Her work explores how emotional bonds between people and places emerge, and how these relationships make a sense of rootedness tangible.

Meena Alyassin is an Iraqi-Canadian visual artist. Since 2023, she has been the co-founder and Creative Director of the independent Iraqi art magazine Henna Magazine, where she is committed to amplifying and making visible the artistic voices of Iraq. She also works as a curator for Baghdad Photo Week, the first international photography fair in Baghdad, which has been presenting diverse visual narratives by local and international photographers since 2023. Most recently, Alyassin’s work was presented in the solo exhibition I know this light at Archives Gallery B2 in Paris (2025).

Ieva Saudargaitė Douaihi studied Architecture at the Lebanese American University in Byblos and the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. She grew up between Lithuania, the United Arab Emirates, and Lebanon. In 2022, she founded Takeover, an artist-run project space in Beirut. In 2021, she co-founded the online platform Digital Fountain. In the same year, she received the Boghossian Foundation Award for Photography and the ADPP Mentorship Award. She is also a member of the Lebanese photography collective Collectif ١٢٠٠. Her most recent exhibitions include the solo exhibitions Uprooted at Outpost, Norwich, UK (2026), and Mare Nexus at Circolo, Milan (2025).

Josephine Scheuer studied photography at Folkwang University of the Arts and completed her postgraduate Meisterschüler studies with Prof. Rita McBride at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2023. In addition to participating in numerous exhibitions in Düsseldorf and Essen, Scheuer has presented her work at venues including Dortmunder Kunstverein (2024), Kunstmuseum Solingen (2022), Montepulciano (2021), Cologne (2018), and Miami (2018).

Larissa Zauser was awarded gute aussichten – junge deutsche fotografie in 2025. Since 2023, she has been a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Photography at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. In 2017, she received the Photography Advancement Award from the City of Graz. Her work has so far been exhibited primarily in Germany and Austria.