Afterheat. Art Exhibition
Afterheat – When Earth Gives Back Light
Pia Isaia & Livia De Magistris
1–5 November 2025
Bardo Projektraum, Berlin
In the warmth that lingers after fire, matter finds new balance.
Afterheat – when earth gives back light explores how clay, once transformed by flame, returns energy as illumination. This exhibition brings together the ceramic practices of Pia Isaia and Livia De Magistris in a shared narrative of migration, transformation, and belonging.
Two Narratives of Migration
The works of Pia Isaia and Livia De Magistris form two complementary stories:
Isaia represents arrival. De Magistris embodies the journey.
Pia Isaia: Acts of Permanence
Isaia’s tripod lamps exist as acts of grounding. The third leg—solid and stable—becomes a trusted guide, allowing the form to stand after a long journey. Her glazed ceramic reflects time, while the light of recycled bulbs becomes living memory: a bridge between what was and what is still being built, between the past and a present searching for home.
In these works, the search for stability is tangible, almost physical—a necessary weight that holds light and anchors it to the earth.
Livia De Magistris: Creatures in Motion
De Magistris’s hybrid beings tell of the run. Post-human creatures that blur the boundaries between gender, animal and human, escape and desire. Their bodies reveal matter in constant transformation—fluid and unstable, like contemporary identity itself.
These imperfect, vital figures reclaim their right to exist, to belong to a world without fixed borders, where hybridity becomes a language and a possibility of freedom. Her sculptures intertwine with illustration in a hybrid narration made of clay, monotype, and pastel on paper.
The drawings frame each character before the run. We do not know what they flee from or where they are heading, but through them we sense that their race is a need, not a choice.
Clay as Language
In both practices, clay—primal, fragile, and enduring—becomes a story of adaptation and rebirth.
Their works seem to complete each other in this shared narrative of migration, creating an empathetic bond: De Magistris’s hybrid beings seem to find in Isaia’s tripods a moment of rest—as if they were trees offering shade before the next departure—while the tripods draw new energy from the creatures, recalling the thrill of constant transformation.
Afterheat is the threshold: what remains of fire, its energy transformed—heat that no longer burns, but gives back light as an act of memory and life.
Exhibition Details
📅 Dates: 1–5 November 2025
🕑 Hours: Saturday to Wednesday, 14:00–18:00
📍 Location: Bardo Projektraum, Jessnerstraße 33, 10247 Berlin
Public Program
Opening Reception
Saturday 1 November, 16:00–20:00
Meet the artists and experience the dialogue between their works.
Workshop: “Archaeological Shapes”
Sunday 2 November, 14:00–17:00
A hands-on exploration of form, memory, and transformation through clay.
Limited spots available—register in advance.
Finissage & Round Table: “After Exhibition, What Now?”
Wednesday 5 November, 19:00
An open conversation about the life of artworks beyond exhibition walls. What happens after the show ends?
Open to all—artists, curators, and curious minds welcome.
Curated by
Elisa Basilissi Lefebvre
→ @assunteena
From the heat that remains after fire, earth gives back light.
Join us at Bardo Projektraum to witness how clay transforms fire’s energy into life—and how migration becomes a language of adaptation and rebirth.
