BAUHAUS NOVA - Student Art Exhibition
Beauty Unseen - Exhibition of BAUHAUS NOVA 2026
Preliminarily, to be said that beauty is seen, beauty is felt through it all; beauty that is felt, it stays through it all. Beauty lies in intricacies, in impermanence, in emotions, and in our thoughts.
As chaotic as it is, artists from universities all over Europe came together to create a symbiosis of beauty from their personal experiences that can be felt by all. The artists whom we exhibit not only see beauty where it mostly stays unseen, but it is their very attempt to bring it to life.
Each artist approaches beauty differently. For some, it emerges through nostalgia and longing, for others through silence, illness, or even survival and overcoming of their fear.
Many of the works draw inspiration from nature; not simply as landscape, but as a sensory and emotional language. Another strong influence in the artworks has been the mundane motion of life, some see it as poetry, some – a pattern, and some – just comedy.
People from different places and backgrounds create a diverse interpretation of beauty, which is exactly what makes it more beautiful. This subjectivity and the different realities of these artists that inspire them is the core of this exhibition. We bring together student artists from across Europe to share perspectives, experiment with digital expression, and open new conversations beyond borders. Organised as part of the Festival of the New European Bauhaus, this exhibition connects activities across Brussels, Weimar, and Castelo Branco, Portugal. Art becomes more meaningful when it creates encounters between people, places, and ideas. We invite you to experience the works, reflect, discuss, and become part of a growing, student-led cultural network. Discover more projects, events, and opportunities through the BAUHAUS4EU Student Council.
Art Gallery Quicklinks - Click to See the Artwork!
PRINTEMPS by Antoine Delabarre (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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PRINTEMPS
by Antoine Delabarre (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
PRINTEMPS is a video performance created in 2024 in which I appear dressed in a flower costume.
This work explores the invisible connections between the human body, identity and the natural landscape. The performance depicts a transformation in which the body seems to blend into its surroundings, revealing a subtle, silent and often unnoticed beauty.
PRINTEMPS thus invites us to slow down our gaze and pay attention to the living world around us, to those fragile, silent presences that we sometimes forget to see despite their essential importance.
The work thus offers a poetic reflection on the need to preserve these natural spaces and the sensitive connections that unite the body with nature.
PRINTEMPS also echoes a rebirth. Indeed, the fabrics used in the mask’s design were hand-dyed with various plants gathered from the very forest where the performance takes place. Rebirth thus takes shape within the costume. The gathered plants did not end up as a bouquet—a fleeting decoration—but as a giant floral costume that will endure for a long time.
It is all these connections between nature, humanity and identity that, for me, form the Unseen Beauty.
Tauben raus!
by Jodie Luk (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
The film explores the intertwined histories of humans and pigeons, revealing the absurd parallels between the marginalisation of pigeons and migrants.
Instagram: @jodie.luklw
Website: jodieluklaiwa.com
Tauben raus! by Jodie Luk (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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Melting process
by nichka (Lviv Academy of Arts)
The process melts like a candle for flame of our creativity to burn. For me, its beauty resembles drops of melted paraffin you only notice when you slow down and take a closer look. It's a metaphor for appreciating the idea of process and details of it, such as the candle lit on the table to brighten up the working athmosphere. In Ukraine, during blackouts, lit candle also means working and creating even when all the lights are out. The most important thing is that you don't give up on your artistry, and the process of it becomes even more significant. And when many people only focuses on result, my work is about the journey, even if it's imperfect. This poster is partly inspired by Japanese aesthetic and worldview "wabi-sabi" about trancience and imperfection. Two concepts are combined here: "wabi" represents natural and humble beauty, rustic simplicity, "sabi" — beauty that comes with passage of time.
Instagram: @nic.chky
Behance: Veronika Kupchynska
Things you can't see
Things you can't see
Things you can't see
by Kassarin (Lviv Academy of Arts)
My work shows things that are impossible to see with the naked eye. I've seen a lot in art, but I've never seen illnesses depicted. I have lupus, the symbol of which is a butterfly. The nave depicts blood vessels. The red eyes represent the destruction of my eyes that is currently happening to me. No one can see this, and no one can tell by my appearance that I'm sick. But I want to say that everything is fixable, my eyes are better, and perhaps if it weren't for this illness, I wouldn't be an artist. Illnesses look scary, but they give meaning to life, because when you get sick, you begin to appreciate it. For me, my illness is not a curse, but a gift.
Things you can't see Things you can't see
Things you can't see
Lahaina Noon
by Juyoun Oh (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
Lahaina Noon_question is a video work layering documentation of a physical installation with personal archival footage on the work's themes. In the installation, transparent hoses, each standing in for a living organism, respond to the sun's changing angle. As light shifts, the hoses move. Each organism carries its own sound, so the piece breathes with the sun's slow movement through time. The title borrows from the tropical noon when the sun stands overhead and shadows briefly disappear, a moment that asks us to look again at what we overlook.
Subtitles trace my questioning, from first inspiration to the central question: can we say that all living beings are equal? Ambient sound was recorded with visitors, so the room, with its voices, its footsteps, and the sound of other works, becomes part of the piece. Coexistence is not only depicted; it is built into the recording.
As a South Korean student in a European art school, I think often about sharing space across difference, between species, cultures, and ways of seeing. Lahaina Noon connects to "Beauty Unseen" by lingering on small organisms and gestures that hold ecosystems and communities together, reminding us that we live in symbiosis, sharing space with what we rarely see.
Instagram: @skslayokly
Lahaina Noon by Juyoun Oh (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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Portrait Collection
Portrait Collection
by Yelyzaveta Slovak (Lviv Academy of Arts)
This artwork explores the individuality and emotional presence of a person through portrait illustration. Every human face carries unique features, expressions, and details that reflect personality and inner emotion. The eyes play a central role in the composition, representing the way a person can be understood through their gaze and silent connection with others.
Through the use of bright, unconventional colors and soft transitions, the artwork creates an atmosphere that feels both vibrant and intimate. The unusual color palette was chosen to move beyond realistic representation and emphasize emotion, beauty, and personal perception instead.
The project celebrates human uniqueness and encourages viewers to observe people more deeply — not only through appearance, but through expression, feeling, and presence.
Instagram: @artonminimal
Behance: Elizabeth Slovak
CQFD by Alicia Brenot + Elian Laurent (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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CQFD
by Alicia Brenot + Elian Laurent (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
CQFD (french expression meaning "which was to be demonstrated") uses the language of proof ironically. In the video-performance, a microphone suggests the expectation of speech and demonstration, yet no proper statement ever arrives. Instead, there is breath, silence, repetitive gestures, hesitation, and a growing sense of exhaustion. This artwork reflects on the pressure to constantly produce, perform, and remain visible within the capitalist system. Here, the body no longer functions as expected with the faltering speech and the drifting attention, and rather than aestheticizing "burnout" (which is my researches subject), CQFD draws attention to what usually remains unseen and socially concealed such as fatigue, withdrawal, fragility, and the impossibility of endlessly meeting demands for productivity. By slowing down, the performance questions dominant ideas of value and visibility, and furthermore, silence becomes a form of interruption because exhaustion becomes a space where refusal can emerge. In this sense, the work connects to Beauty Unseen by revealing hidden realities and unnoticed forms of resistance. The written sentence; "I am tired. What if we moved outside these walls?" opens toward the possibility of creating differently, beyond normative institutional spaces.
Instagram: @cia.br , @elian.laurent
The beauty of inside
by dar (Lviv Academy of Arts)
We often forget that the real beauty hides in our own organisms. Nothing is as perfect and sofisticated as anatomy of a living being.
Instagram: @dar.moed17
outdated
by Christian Wolf (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
the installation spans its examination through a work series. it probes on one hand, space and its possibility being enhanced by th use of interactive media, let's say space being activated by bodytracking, bringing narrative with visitor as a performer by sound and lighting.
the installation probes these strategies of interaction between subject and object, enhancing the idea of sculpture on one hand, but then also, looks at the medial content, as a sculptural material, in the physical, the 'outdated' furniture, as also the, metaphysical(?) material, as of sound, like 90's commercials, musical motiif, jingles, etc., all providing outdated role models, communicative strategies which might have exceeded their point of validity.
all in all, the idea is to enter and navigate through these spaces of a past, these fragments of memory. might it be a living room providing a role model, which could been understood as once female, might it be a space of childhood, or of a senior, remembering tradition and a togetherness.
Website: https://itiswhatyouthinkit.is
outdated by Christian Wolf (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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? BONE WORKS !
? BONE WORKS !
by Emilia Ferreira Pedroso (Polytechnic University of Castelo Branco)
? BONE WORKS ! Is the title of my BA collection in fashion design. The main inspiration being the human bones that provide structure and carry our identity everyday. This project celebrates our inner structure giving it prestige in a feminine streetwear RTW collection.
Beauté éphémère
by Oriana (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
The artwork is a self-contained digital space, a forced pause in the frenzy of visual consumerism. Within it, I have created original texts based on footage of plants, which I filmed myself earlier this year. Here, the image refuses to be swallowed up in a hurry. It demands to be read, breathed in, and absorbed. This site is an invitation to slow down: to look at the beauty of the invisible, to transform the gaze into a poetic and sensitive awareness.
The approach is an act of radical care. Taking the time to observe flowers means learning to pay attention to the vulnerable, to what we ignore. At the end, a manifesto concludes the journey, illustrated by a photograph of my performance “Puissent-Elles te parvenir” from January 2026. This frozen moment embodies “paying attention”: listening, being present, touching imperfection. The text questions our relationship with small things, with overlooked details. It asserts that flaws, scars and asymmetries are beautiful. They reveal our humanity, our capacity to feel. To be attentive is to recognise that this fragility makes us a species in our own right, capable of transforming the mundane into the sacred, of rediscovering a sensitivity lost in the noise of the world. It is a call for slowness as an act of resistance and rebirth.
Beauté éphémère by Oriana (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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The Martyr
by nartina (Lviv Academy of Arts)
The image centers on a mermaid entangled in a net set by humans to catch fish. Her pose conveys to the viewer all the character’s torment and pain. To evoke greater empathy, a mermaid with a more human-like appearance was depicted. Her gaze, further emphasized by the lighting, reveals anger toward her tormentors. Purple and blue tones were also used in the illustration to convey a more somber mood, as well as to contrast with the red hue in her angry gaze. The main goal was to depict the problem of ocean pollution, which results in marine life becoming entangled in debris.
Letter to my sister / I waited too long
by Maria Anna Trakosiari (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)
First video -A video poem dedicated to my sister. In my recent work I touch a lot on the topic girlhood-childhood
This video was part of this series .
In the video I read a poem I wrote to my sister in greek.
I decided to translate the strongest sentences for me .
Letter to my sister by Maria Anna Trakosiari (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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I waited too long by Maria Anna Trakosiari (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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This artwork brought me piece and comfort after moving to a new country by myself, constantly feeling homesick.
second video- Pomegranates are a big symbol in my family . They have a very special place in my heart and I always see them as a ritual. This video was recorded after I realised that the precious fruit I was saving up for the perfect moment was already rotten and the moment was already far gone.
first touch, lasting mark
As a performance in public space I offered my skills for a fictional handshake training, where I placed myself at different locations in the city of Weimar with a chair, a table, hand sanitizer and a document which people could give feedback to the handshake on. I also gave people feedback on the quality of their handshakes.
The idea was to get in physical contact with strangers and to overcome the fear of not knowing someone with a simple gesture. Many people participated and were happily surprised by the idea. Most of the participants shared their experience very open after the first touch.
I think especially after times like the pandemic and with social media we feel more fear than ever to get in touch with real people in real life.
Excerpt from the video:
"...Leon knows this well. He’s trained with hundreds—maybe thousands—of handshakes, refining every gesture, every nuance. Through experience and precision, he’s turned a simple act into a powerful tool. And now, he’s ready to share that with you.
So let’s not forget the power of a handshake. Let’s use it wisely. Firm, but not forceful. Warm, not rushed. Because every handshake tells a story—and every story can be better told.
The handshake isn’t just history... it’s humanity. And we can always make it better."
Instagram: @leonhimmelbauer
hand geben, kontakt pflegen
shake hands, keep in touch
hand geben kontakt pflegen by Leon Himmelbauer (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
from Alliance BAUHAUS4EU
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first touch, lasting mark by Leon Himmelbauer (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
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first touch, lasting mark
Improve your handshake
Learn how to perfect your handshake and make a lasting impression from the very first touch
Perceptive Transcendence by Bétel (BAUHAUS NOVA 2026: Beauty Unseen)
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Perceptive Transcendence
by Bétel (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
The question of human superiority, although false, has always been present in human consciousness. However, when confronted with the real hardships of life in the wild, it becomes clear that the being who claimed to be the Supreme Being is reduced to the status of prey, just like the other animal species with whom it shares this position. Allergies, fears, and animal phobias are proof of our place within the food chain.
It is within the continuation of this reality that Perceptive Transcendence takes shape. The result of a long reflection, this animation seeks to address the question of how to perceive and understand the world through another perspective, another form of dialogue beyond that of humans. Not only does the work present an interspecies discourse, intertwining fauna, flora, and energy, but it also confronts us with an ecological, preventive, and conservation-oriented dialogue that challenges our perception of the environmental world.
