The exhibition "Familiar Strangers: On the Mutations of the Everyday" was held in Berlin as part of the HOLOBIONT 2026 project and the 15th Berlin Art Week. The exhibition was curated by Azerbaijani curator Zuleykha Ibad and featured works by artists Ewelina Węgiel, Anna Raczyńska, and Viktor Petrov. The exhibition took place at RWK Studios by 3CA, an arts and production complex located in Berlin's Zehlendorf district and occupying an area of approximately 16,000 square meters, according to a statement from the project's curator.
At the heart of the exhibition are ordinary objects from everyday life that we gradually stop noticing: furniture, curtains, kitchen utensils, car windshields, and even a coal mine. The artists invite viewers to look at these objects from a new perspective and consider them as carriers of personal memory, social relationships, and historical change. The title of the exhibition refers to the concept of the "familiar stranger," introduced by American social psychologist Stanley Milgram.
The term describes people whom we regularly see but never interact with. The curator extends this idea to everyday objects as well. Many things are constantly around us, yet over time they become almost invisible.
A central work in the exhibition was Bulgarian artist Viktor Petrov's Some Missing Parts (2026). It is a 1:7 scale model of a post-socialist residential building made from Märklin metal construction pieces. The model also recreates a courtyard, a garage, and a playground.
The perforated metal elements make the walls transparent, allowing viewers to explore the connection between private life and architectural memory. Ewelina Węgiel explores informal forms of knowledge, folk stories, rumors, and narratives that circulate outside official history. In her video installation Coal (2024), a coal mine in the Polish city of Bełchatów acquires its own voice and tells its story in the first person.
Her textile work Fireplace (2025) is made from threads from a closed sewing workshop, fragments of old curtains, and soil taken from a drainage ditch. Anna Raczyńska alters the form, material, and scale of everyday objects, transforming their visual language into something abstract and unsettling. In leave everything behind (2019), a car windshield becomes a boundary between two socio-economic spaces.
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