Magic tricks, a perpetually spinning coin, predictions of the future, zero probability, black swan, unforeseen crisis, falling prices, rising values, speculation, bureaucratic retribution or divine leniency – debt, redemption, reckoning, calculation. Here, financial jargon mingles with morally charged religious vocabulary.
In the installation Dilemma, Gosia Lehmann invites visitors to take an interactive walk through a large blue velvet labyrinth while contemplating a peculiar kind of magic: the mysteries of supply and demand.
The artist is interested in the opaque circulation of capital in an increasingly unequal and polarised world. Riddles and twisted logic serve as tools for understanding and confronting the darkness and complexity of the present moment. Visitors are invited to actively engage with the work, responding to questions that determine which path they take. Yet there are no winners in this tricky game. Beware: with every choice you make, you forgo another path, with no possibility of turning back.
Gosia Lehmann is a Polish transdisciplinary artist, researcher, performer, filmmaker, and chef based in Berlin. Drawing on techniques from film and theatre, she explores the interdependent relationship between fact and belief. Dilemmas, riddles, and magic tricks are tools through which she investigates the subjectivity of knowing. She sees the world as shaped by fictions that can be reconfigured into more hopeful scripts.
Her work has been presented at venues and events including transmediale in Berlin, Tanzquartier Wien, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Neun Kelche in Berlin, Rupert in Vilnius, Halle für Kunst in Lüneburg, Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto in Montreal, CYENS Centre of Excellence in Nicosia, Hošek Contemporary in Berlin, the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, and Good Design Week in Tokyo. From 2020 to 2025, she was a guest lecturer at the Berlin University of the Arts, and in 2020 she co-founded the project space Solaris.
Performance credits
Production assistance: Valerian Blos
Technical sound setup: Constantin Engelmann (Studio Plonk)
Sound design: Lukas Grundmann
Camera: Helia Jafarzadeh
Main image credit: Helia Jafarzadeh