tongue 혀 twist

zungen 혀 brecher is Surya Suran Gied's inaugural solo exhibition at Paint Shop Berlin, bringing together new work developed specifically for the space. The exhibition takes a biographical rupture as its starting point: the loss of Gied's Korean mother tongue following migration to Germany. From this point, an artistic investigation unfolds, exploring how experiences barely expressible in language can be articulated visually and spatially.
At the center lies the question of how migration, cultural estrangement, and processes of reappropriation can be represented beyond linguistic terms. The loss of the mother tongue is understood not only as a personal fracture but also as an expression of historical and social conditions that shape identity and belonging.
Gied's practice operates at the intersection of painting, installation, sculpture, film, and sound, examining how visual and spatial forms can reflect and transform identity within the tension between figuration and abstraction. Figuration anchors personal and cultural narratives, while abstraction opens spaces in which fragmentation, displacement, and ambiguity become visible. Drawing on (auto)biographical materials — oral histories, photographs, and documentary sources — she develops strategies that render biographical ruptures and absences perceptible.
In zungen 혀 brecher, this approach becomes a spatial, multimedia installation combining painting, sculptural elements, and installative structures. The works form a framework in which memory fragments, cultural codes, and historical references overlap. Between figurative representation and its dissolution, a visual vocabulary emerges that negotiates translation, loss, and reappropriation — making questions of language, identity, and cultural belonging unfold sensorially and spatially.