In the series CCCCCOMA COLLAB, we collaborate with already existing institutions outside the art world to open up a platform for visual artists beyond already established structures while creating new ways of accessing visual art. In the second issue of the series, artists Samantha Bohatsch, Sophie Calle, Lea Draeger, Harry Hachmeister, Šejla Kamerić, Julia Lübbecke, Markues, Rima Radhakrishnan and Anys Reimann show their work at She Said, a bookstore for queer and female authors in Berlin Neukölln. The collaboration with She Said emerged from many work overlaps and shared work interests: How do we want to work together? Which voices do we want to be heard? How can we increase participation in the cultural sphere?

The idea of staging the She Said bookstore as an exhibition space is of course no coincidence. No matter if we wish to use the words of our favorite authors to read ourselves to faraway places, to explore new utopias or other lived realities – reading has imaginative power. And it is not only through feminist icons and writers like Audre Lorde that we know about the transformative potential of writing and language, which takes on all the more weight in times of ongoing crises. It is therefore hardly surprising that there is a considerable exchange between art and literature, and that the boundaries between the two fields often dissolve. Between the Lines brings together positions by female and queer artists whose work is shaped by their engagement with language and literature. The exhibition explores the influence language can have on artistic practice, writing and reading as artistic methods, the book as material, and the infinite potential of the book as an artistic medium.