Da Swamp

“Da Swamp” is an interactive, immersive collaborative exhibition by Shona Neary and Niamh-Erin Cusack that creeps between thresholds: outside and inside, street and pond, human and animal. The Berlin-based animals are frogs and rats. Frogs linger in watery margins—ponds, canals, hidden marshes—while rats patrol streets, basements, and underground tunnels. Both live close to human life yet remain largely unseen or misunderstood, mirroring perceptions of Berlin itself.

Berlin was built on marshland, and in many ways still is. “Da Swamp” imagines the city as a swamp ecosystem in which humans also take part. Moving through Berlin becomes an act of wading, adapting, surviving. In this sense, we are oversized frogs navigating shifting ground and shared habitats. Niamh-Erin identifies with the frog through playful, illustrative creations, while Shona channels the rat through a raw, underground approach to painting.

For OUT/SIDE/IN, “Da Swamp” becomes a living map—an interpretation rather than a literal guide. In the back garden of The Floor, a pond forms a small wild world behind bricks and asphalt. Inside, the exhibition space transforms into a swamp-like environment where painting, installation, performance, sound, and tactile elements merge into a dense habitat. The contrast between Niamh-Erin’s bright, playful imagery and Shona’s darker Berlin-inspired scenes blurs imagination and harsh reality, reflecting how maps reveal interpretation rather than objective truth.

Acrylic and oil paintings anchor the exhibition while live performance, sound, and a collaborative painting session activate the space. Visitors move between garden pond and interior swamp, becoming part of the ecosystem as boundaries dissolve between artwork, environment, and audience. “Da Swamp” invites audiences to wander, interact, and play within this in-between zone, where hidden life thrives and Berlin emerges through grit, colour, and childlike imagination.