SET v.26: Collective Cosmo, 2025
Commision: Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar
Collaborator: Saleh Alsaid, Anastasia Pantazi, Jinyu Wang (participating students), Stefan Hauser (organizer), Manuel Wesely (project coordination), Joas Strecker (photography), Phil Zumbruch, Hannes Brischke (support)
Exhibition title: Collective Cosmo
Venue: Galerie der HBKsaar
Period: 2025.04.09—2025.04.29
Collective Cosmo: SET v.26 is a version of SET developed with students during a visiting professorship at HBK Saarbrücken in 2025. What began as an exhibition gradually grew into a collective practice.
Na Kim thinks of graphic design spatially, moving signs and typography from the page onto large-format walls painted by hand. At the heart of the show are Pieces; standalone works that translate fragments of past SET installations onto canvas. Here each student made their own Piece by responding to an instruction drawn from conceptual and performance art: paint the feeling of arriving late; find a line that stays with you and translate it into form. Pieces become not only recollections of past works but newly authored creations, made collectively.
Beneath its openness the exhibition follows clear rules, with forms drawn from the visual vocabulary of the 2015 SET book. The process invites reflection on authorship, translation, and the tension between personal expression and shared systems of making. An accompanying publication documents each participant's translations, becoming the project's new point of departure.