by Eva Szwarc // Dec. 26, 2025
‘The Power of Small Things’ may be an anniversary exhibition—marking 15 years of Soy Capitán—but there is certainly little pomp. Quiet and understated, the show presents the work of 17 artists, who are either represented by the gallery or part of its wider network. In the exhibition text, the smallness in question is discussed not on the level of “scale or spectacle,” but rather speaks to the idea of “concentration over expansion.” The intention of the exhibition, positioned as a “living index,” very much depends on where we place our attention.
‘The Power of Small Things,’ 2025, installation view // Photo by Roman Maerz, courtesy of Soy Capitan
The majority of works are dotted along the walls with a linear compactness that focusses the gallery space itself. There is a touch of playfulness in the placement of a golden mushroom: installed two thirds of the way up one wall, the work is high enough that I nearly overlook it altogether. ‘Samsara (deity)’ (2022) by Benja Sachau is a tinder sponge, which first intersected with the artist’s life when it fell from a tree onto the bonnet of a friend’s car. Here, covered in 24 carat gold, Sachau has reinstated the fungi at the height from which it first fell.
Benja Sachau: ‘Samsara (deity),’ tinder sponge, 24-carat gold, 20 × 33 × 18 cm // Photo by Roman Maerz, courtesy of Soy Capitan
Tinder sponge starts life as a parasite of a tree, changing to a decomposer once the tree is dead. Sachau centers the fungi within the wider context of samsara, which refers to the cycle of rebirth and death. This repositioning calls into question both the environment and the artist’s role. Tinder sponge has been used for centuries—as medicine, as fire starter, as a tool sharpener. How can this organism now perform as a static object within the gallery? Is the artist, through their intervention, renewing a cycle or disrupting one? The tinder sponge ultimately emerges with all these uses still intact but is suspended in a perversely attractive state that glints between the sacred and the profane.
Melissa Joseph: ‘Conjunto with Joey,’ 2024, needle felted wool on industrial felt in found silver platter, Ø 20.5 cm // Photo by Roman Maerz, courtesy of Soy Capitan
Elsewhere, in the two works of Melissa Joseph, altogether more personal environments are shared. In ‘Conjunto with Joey’ and ‘Shruti Box for Vasyl’ (both 2024), needle felted tableaus sit within found objects, their organic edges fuzzing into the aged patinas of silverware or metal. In ‘Shruti Box for Vasyl,’ the felt scene is tucked into an open vintage first-aid box, which appears like a portal to another world. The felt’s tactile quality is made more palpable in combination with this rusty vessel, which possesses an amulet-like quality. You cannot help but think of all the hands it has travelled through before. The implication of people in both titles (the works are either with or for someone) shape each artwork as a gift or invitation. They are layers of intimate histories, felted stories imbedded within the stories of the found objects. As I look at ‘Conjunto with Joey,’ I think of my own great uncle playing his accordion in the sunshine, weaving my own personal memories into the tableau.
Grace Weaver: ‘Untitled (Souvenir Collage),’ 2025, mixed media on paper, 17.8 × 12.7 cm (paper size) // Photo by Roman Maerz, courtesy of Soy Capitan
‘The Power of Small Things’ also invites us to see artists working at a scale unfamiliar to their usual practice. Grace Weaver, better known for her large paintings of dynamic female forms, presents a series of small collages here. At this condensed scale, her figures still possess an expansive quality; heart-shaped shoulders, long neck, scooped waist. They are composed largely from the packaging card of consumer goods and shown on the move, grasping at a shopping bag or phone, between one place and another. The packaging is stamped in various brands and different languages, lightly tracing the artist’s own movements and granting a small sense of travels and choices. Have you ever found a stranger’s shopping list on the floor? As in these collages, it evokes an intimacy in the mundane. Weaver draws attention to how the seemingly inconsequential makes up the fabric of our lived experience.
‘The Power of Small Things,’ 2025, installation view // Photo by Roman Maerz, courtesy of Soy Capitan
Throughout the exhibition, smallness operates as a quietly oppositional force. Wide-ranging in ecological, cultural and personal contexts, these works are linked in their refusal to dominate. The exhibition space itself is intensified by the fact that these works do not compete for our focus. They are to be encountered in relation to each other in quiet accumulation. Small-scale work is an ultimately intimate format, in which meaning accrues with sustained attention. This means a little more is asked of the viewer, who will be rewarded for staying a little longer. In our age of immediacy, ’The Power of Small Things’ is a welcome invitation to look more slowly and more deeply.
Exhibition Info
Soy Capitán
Group Show: ‘The Power of Small Things’
Exhibition: Nov. 14, 2025–Jan. 17, 2026
soycapitan.de
Lindenstraße 34, 10969 Berlin, click here for map
