Berlin book launch of Sand Is Water You Can Walk On with texts by Sophia Eisenhut, Eva Hegge & Miriam Stoney, edited by Benjamin Buchegger and Katharina Schilling, published by BOM DIA BOA TARDE NOA NOITE.

The three texts stand alongside the paintings on an equal footing and forge new connections not only with the paintings but also with each other. Intertextual references to feminist literature, medieval poetry and political as well as geometric theory emerge. While the artistic exchange between the authors and Schilling is obvious, the publication deliberately leaves unclear whether the texts refer to the paintings or vice versa. If you follow the pictures, the three voices speak to you again and again; if you follow the texts, your gaze is drawn back to the pictures. The open principle of the publication moves incessantly between the different subject areas and creates a lyrical form that opens up more gaps than it closes.

The book is available here.

Analogue images: Maria Helena Nerhus

#1 Under the Skin: Katharina Schilling

In the echo of Katharina Schilling’s exhibition Für Immer, and the launch of her artist book Sand is Water You Can Walk On published by Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite (2024), GROTTO is pleased to share a few of Schilling’s reflections on her new publication, her reference to The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan, as well as her practice.

The book launch took place in April 2025 in the lush atrium garden of Hansabibliothek, Berlin, hosted by Elena Malzew of Bom Dia Boa Tarde Boa Noite and Cafe Tiergarten. Writers Eva Hegge, Miriam Stoney, and Sophia Eisenhut each read from their contributions, weaving their texts into a shared, circling and bouncing rhythm.

GROTTO: How did you choose the writers for your catalogue?

Katharina Schilling: I have a close friendship with all three of them. and have been in conversation with them about my work for a long time. Also they all write incredibly well, so it was an obvious choice to ask them for the book. Each of them has their own unique writing style and I hoped that they would each pick up on different aspects of my work without us having to discuss them beforehand. And that's how it turned out.

GROTTO: What was it like reading their texts for the first time, and how do their words resonate with your paintings?

KS: I find reading texts about my work exciting you experience how the paintings become independent, how they grow beyond your own horizon. Eva's text picks up on the everyday in my paintings, the descriptive moment, but also the magic that lies in the mundane. Miriam's text is a lyrical analysis of the geometric arrangement of my motifs, and shows how mathematical insights can lead to philosophical considerations. Sophia reflects, among other things, on our fascination with the Middle Ages and the impossibility of self-abolition, which also interests me within my artistic practice.

GROTTO: What are your thoughts on The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan?

KS: The book is an early feminist literary criticism that had a wide reach in its time, around 1400. De Pizan was the first European female author who was able to make a living from her writing. In it, she calls for gender-independent access to education and rails against hate speech from misogynistic authors. She uses stories of strong women of all times to build her City of Ladies as a place of refuge with utopian potential that transcends all time. For me, it is also like a source of knowledge about mythical and historical figures from antiquity and the Middle Ages. But I was also frustrated by the fact that it's only known to relatively few. Why didn't we read it at school or at least in art school? So it is also a testimony to how successfully feminist narratives and movements have been suppressed again and again in the course of historiography. In addition, we have long practiced a historical othering with the Middle Ages, i.e. this long dark period of time from which nothing good could come. But I feel this is changing.

GROTTO: How did it come into your life, and how did you experience it?

KS: Sophia Eisenhut was the first to tell me about it, but it came to me through Sophia Rohwetter (who wrote the exhibition text for the show at GROTTO), who gave it to me as a present. When I started reading it, I was amazed that it was written in such a funny way and at the same time very touched that it is even possible for an author who lived in the 14th century to touch me with her text. That seems so incredibly unlikely to me and makes me really euphoric about this unique ability of art to create a feeling of connection between people across the centuries.

GROTTO: What inspires or fuels your artistic practice?

KS: This can be anything, everyday things, art, music, books or conversations with friends.

GROTTO: What are you curious to explore in your future work?

KS: So far, I've always come to my topics through my daily practice rather than the other way round. But I think I'm going to get even more involved with geometry.

Related event: Für Immer