POWER *
Collective Exhibition by Bod Mellor, Jonna Kina, Stine Deja and Gabriel Abrantes
07.05.2026 - 30.05.2026
*as part of the INDEX festival
“Power — a word of overwhelming dimensions — is the starting point of this exhibition. It is a term that defies easy categorization, resisting constraints and fixed definitions. It expands, unfolding throughout history and through the very essence of desire. Its vastness makes any attempt at a total approach impossible. Rather than aiming to be exhaustive, this collective exhibition consciously embraces partiality, choosing to address some of the many facets that define this concept.
This exhibition operates through intuition rather than hierarchy. The works do not seek depth in a systematic way; instead, they deliberately remain close to the surface, where symbols circulate rapidly and authority is exercised, imagined, or distorted. This surface is not superficial. It is charged, unstable, and revealing. Throughout the exhibition, irony functions as a release valve. Its presence sharpens critical edges while also allowing moments of relief under such intensity.
Some works evoke childhood fantasies of authority projected into the future, with children imagining themselves as dictators, where innocence intertwines with domination in ways that are both unsettling and absurd. In other cases, power is staged through absence rather than declaration. Speeches occur without words; total silence is used to assert authority, creating a sense of tension, expectation, and submission through what is withheld rather than expressed. Other works take on darker tones. Prison guards, judges, and detention center administrators are portrayed as monstrous or spectral presences, while ghosts emerge in profound conversations, reflecting on the invisible structures of control that shape contemporary societies. These ghostly figures do not only haunt the past but remain in the present, echoing unresolved brutality and enduring hierarchies.
Sound works based on field recordings of drones symbolize regimes of surveillance and control over disputed territories. These sonic traces operate quietly yet persistently, reflecting forms of power that are both dominant and almost invisible. Poems inscribed on the walls of historic buildings offer no illusion of hope. They refuse consolation and recognize language as a space where violence is seen as irreversible. The exhibition also suggests less visible forms of power. The afterlife appears as an extension of control, where systems of belief continue to regulate bodies and behavior beyond death.