Opening and roundtable: MUDDY MEASURES: LATENT ACCUMULATIONS

Paraffin is an often overlooked but recurring problem in coastal regions: a residue from petroleum processing that is neither solid nor liquid and therefore difficult to classify.


Paraffin is considered harmless (inert) – but because it is malleable and mobile, it behaves unpredictably. When it washes up on the beach and mixes with sand, it is barely noticeable. Latent Accumulations explores this elusive activity – in a landscape characterized by both large-scale industrial facilities and fragile ecologies.


The difficulty of detecting and measuring paraffin is evident wherever boundaries blur: between solid and liquid states, between time spans, and between the cause and effect of environmental pollution.


The exhibition presents a site-specific research process that combines tangible investigations with local knowledge, personal experiences, and memories of the changing landscape of the Curonian Spit.


It asks: What tools can humans develop to explore materials at the boundary between land and sea? How can we work with mobile materials? And what larger ecological and geopolitical entanglements are reflected in their traces?


Latent Accumulations is part of the exhibition MUDDY MEASURES: when wetlands and heritage converse, planned by the Centre for Advanced Studies inherit. heritage in transformation. Curators: Margareta von Oswald, Yoonha Kim, and Juliana Robles.

Roundtable on May 9, 6:30–8 p.m. (before the opening)

The roundtable approaches materials at thresholds from various disciplinary positions in the fields of environmental media, architecture, design, curatorial practice, and materials science. They explore "murky measurements" by opening environmental concerns to questions of phase transitions, material memory, and residues through practices of witnessing, collecting, and preserving.


With Alice Jarry (Concordia University, Montreal), Egija Inzule (Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts), Rafico Ruiz (Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal), Peter Fratzl (MPI of Colloids and Interfaces), Iva Rešetar, and Léa Perraudin (Matters of Activity). Moderation: Yoonha Kim (inherit.heritage in transformation).



The project is carried out by the Cluster of Excellence "Matters of Activity" at Humboldt University Berlin as part of the __matter Festival 2025 – in collaboration with the Nida Art Colony of the Vilnius Academy of Arts and with the support of the Lithuanian Council for Culture.