What remains when we strip ourselves back to an essential core\u2014and can that core ever be stable?\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In\u00a0The Arrows of Concerns<\/i>, Paula Punksti\u0146a approaches identity as liminal, wounded, and continually reconstituted. The exhibition unfolds through material and psychological compressions in which the self bends, fractures, dissolves, and reforms. Oscillating between vulnerability, naivety, resistance, playfulness, and detachment, Punksti\u0146a\u2019s works trace how subjectivity adapts under pressure without vanishing entirely.<\/p>\n
At the exhibition center, flexible polyurethane memory foam serves as both structure and metaphor for exposed corporeality. It absorbs impact, yields, and slowly returns to form. Punksti\u0146a treats it as a model of \u201cessence\u201d: mutable yet retentive, marked by experience but resistant to permanent distortion. Coated, pierced, or coupled with intrusive elements\u2014bamboo arrows, taxidermy fragments, bicycle parts, synthetic hair\u2014the flesh-like material becomes a site of exposure. At times, it is sheathed in a honeyed, porous membrane resembling a second skin, suggesting protection without fully sealing the boundary between inside and out.<\/p>\n
The sculptural objects on display operate as prosthetic frameworks for an existential narrative. Fragmented human and animal anatomies\u2014hair, antlers, legs\u2014embody unstable states of being, resonating with Julia Kristeva\u2019s concept of abjection, in which the body oscillates between identification and repulsion. Clinical and industrial references\u2014forms reminiscent of operating tables and components of indeterminate transport mechanisms\u2014introduce an atmosphere of calculated intervention and constrained movement. This sterility stands in stark contrast to the tenderness of the materials they penetrate, support, or encircle. The resulting tension echoes the artist\u2019s own gesture\u2014notes that often accompany her thinking: (..)\u00a0to dodge the bullet, yet still bear the wound.<\/i><\/p>\n
The deer recurs as a collective symbol rather than a literal figure. Connoting innocence, youth, and belonging, this\u00a0Bambi<\/i>\u00a0stands in for a once-coherent identity later dismantled. By disassembling the image, Punksti\u0146a questions permanence and explores thresholds between life and death, presence and erasure. Passing appears not as an end, but as a transformation\u2014redistribution rather than disappearance.<\/p>\n
Photographic collages drawn from personal archives and found images extend these concerns into memory. They evoke searching and distortion, asking whether fractured or unwanted recollections can unsettle the self. Individuation begins with a cut. Over time, a second skin accumulates, layered with suppressed affects and disavowed experience. Though pride and self-narration attempt to overwrite them, these traces persist, quietly shaping identity.<\/p>\n
In Heideggerian terms,\u00a0being-in-the-world\u00a0<\/i>is inseparable from becoming; existence is engagement, not stasis. Punksti\u0146a\u2019s practice inhabits this tension between dissolution and reconstruction, foregrounding vulnerability, interdependence, and an uneasy proximity to the object-subject.<\/p>\n
Initially conceived as an open experiment, the exhibition marks a shift in material and conceptual approach. Moving beyond earlier work with aluminium plates and UV printing, Punksti\u0146a embraces processes that translate ideas directly into matter: burned edges, perforations, melted coatings. Translation itself becomes central\u2014between language and material, experience and form, rupture and resonance.<\/p>\n
Inflected by the artist\u2019s formative years,\u00a0The Arrows of Concerns<\/i>\u00a0centers on the fluidity of identity\u2014its oscillation between stability and disintegration\u2014and on the intimate calculus of choice, separation, loss, and self-redefinition. The work traces a subject in the midst of becoming, where each rupture recalibrates the terms of coherence. How many times must the \u201cI\u201d be wounded before adaptation hardens from reflex into structure\u2014and when it returns to its seemingly \u201coriginal\u201d form, what sediments of memory and transformation continue to course through it?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Paula Punksti\u0146a is a recipient of Kim? Open Call 2026.<\/b><\/p>\n
Paula Punksti\u0146a<\/b>\u00a0(b. 2001) is a Latvian visual artist. She graduated in Photography from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, and is currently pursuing a Master\u2019s degree at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. Her work emphasises explorations of identity, fragility, and transitional states of disappearance. By combining philosophy with visual metaphors, Punksti\u0146a\u2019s artistic practice engages with the translation of concepts into material form.\u00a0Recent projects include a solo exhibition at DOM Gallery, Riga (2024) and a forthcoming duo show with Sara Francola at Art Au Centre, Li\u00e8ge (2026). Recent group exhibitions include the 5th and 6th editions of Black Market\u00a0by Kim? (2024, 2025),\u00a0Where Are You Currently?<\/i>\u00a0at Paradise, The Hague (2025), RESTART at Prospektas Gallery, Vilnius (2024), and the Limburg Biennale at Marres House for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht (2024).<\/p>\n
Paula Punksti\u0146a\u2019s acknowledgements: family, Sara Francola, Tim Ross, Aida Vald\u00e9s G\u00f3mez.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Supported by:\u00a0<\/b>Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Kokmui\u017ea, Media Port<\/i><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Kim? Contemporary Art Centre and exhibition team:
\n<\/b>Executive Director: Evita Goze
\nProgram Director: Zane Onckule
\nProject Manager: Katr\u012bna Jau\u0123iete
\nCommunications Manager: Kristi\u0101na B\u0113rza
\nSales Director: D\u0101rta Purvl\u012bce
\nMediators: Betija Briede, Linda \u0160terna, Em\u012blija Austra Lodi\u0146a, Alise Sedleniece
\nTechnical team: Aldis Bu\u0161s, Andris Mara\u010dkovskis, J\u0101nis Noviks
\nDesign: Anna Ceipe
\nEnglish translation: Valts Mi\u0137elsons
\nLatvian proofreading: Ilze Jansone
\nEnglish proofreading: Will Mawhood<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":230,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"class_list":["post-257","exhibition","type-exhibition","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kim.wrong.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kim.wrong.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kim.wrong.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/exhibition"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kim.wrong.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kim.wrong.lv\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}