12.09.2025-17.09.2025
C-Space Berlin
Climate in Motion'' Moving Pieces: Photo Montage & Painted Echos
12-17 September 2025 | C-Space Berlin, Langhansstraße 86, 13086 Berlin
The room breathed with late-summer light for Sanyam’s 6th Exhibition in collaboration with Lavia Lin, an abstract artist and live painting performer from Shanghai at C-Space in Berlin. It slipped through the tall windows, poured over the tables, and rested on two bodies of work in conversation, Sanyam Bajaj’s art work curated montages, and Lavia Lin’s abstract paintings. Nothing felt static. Images leaned into brushstrokes; brushstrokes reached back complimenting the theme of the exhibition. The exhibition moved, and so did the audience.
We opened on Friday, 12th September with an opening speech and a quiet ritual of care: vegan wine, plant-based bites, no single-use anything. Outside, Berlin Art Week pulsed through the city; inside, about 60–70 visitors crossed our threshold across three days, artists, students from the Hertie School & SRH University, start-ups, environmental lawyers, neighbours, government officials, policy experts—arriving and re-arriving as if to test whether the space itself could hold what the topic usually spills over. It did.
During the exhibition, right in the middle of the space, a blank canvas lay waiting on the table with simple prompts, are you hopeful? do you have fear? are you optimistic? questions you can’t name yet, prompting participants to just paint their thoughts. Hands found brushes. Words became lines, lines became shapes. By the end of day one the canvas had a heartbeat, so we lifted it and hung it mid-air for day two—no longer a surface, but a gathering, that became a part of the exhibition. On day three we returned it to the table to keep the conversation open, unfinished, honest.
Along one wall, books hovered “mid-fall / mid-thought.” German, English, Spanish. You could stand under them and feel knowledge as weather—always there, always enough, asking: what stops us from acting? In the corner, a wish tree collected small knots of intention. “My Wish for People To Work together.” “Politics Guided by Empathy & Human Rights Principles.” “Everyone Reads & Learn,” “Small Contribution act that Transform into Meaningful and Impactful Strides”.” Under its branches, the Climate Clock ticked—our collaboration with the New York initiative—holding a steady, almost tender urgency: time is not abstract; it is a choice we make together.
We didn’t just curated the exhibition but wanted to move people, make them a part of the exhibition, and take something back especially when they had a chance to look themselves into the mirror (called the self-reflection mirror) hanging right in the middle of the space.
Lavia’s live painting on the last day with sound became a quiet anchor. People fell into it the way one falls into breath. During the Finissage we asked the audience for one word. to their reflection, what returned felt like a pulse reading of the room: “meditative,” “tranquil,” “hopefulness,” “togetherness,” “thought-provoking.” The work didn’t lecture; it lengthened our attention. It made staying—with discomfort, with beauty—possible. Could we act now? If you are reading this and wanted to contribute for the next exhibition, please reach out at info@drishyakalaklima.com
We’re grateful to C*SPACE for tending the conditions and special mention to the co-founder, Katja Hellkötter, during the Finissage, named what we try to practice and quoted from a book by Sacha Jérôme Kagan, “climate transition is not only technologies, governance, and policy; it is ethics and culture—and art is still an underused ally in helping people feel their way through complexity. Science and education help us understand. Art keeps us in the feeling long enough to act.”
What we made together
A collective canvas that will travel with Drishya Kala Klima as living archive.
A wish tree tied with commitments, grounded beneath a ticking clock.
A reading constellation of suspended books—knowledge as invitation, not instruction.
A small practice of sustainability—vegan catering, no disposables, self-funded with generous support from C*SPACE.
If you left with a word, a knot, a question—carry it forward. Climate is not only something we measure; it is something we feel, shape, and share.
Picture Credits: Hannah Hotz/Jewellery Artist
