Threshold V (even you name take the shape of a snake at the ceremony)
Threshold VI (fanfare)
Threshold VII (vaudeville gape gate, roll up, get your tickets, see a girl with a mouth with no door, no door)

The exhibition A stage she’s going through marks the first chapter of the project Becoming B and presents an installation by Melanie Jame Wolf, who was an artist-in-residence at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in 2020–21. The large front window and doorway of the exhibition space form the first threshold – an invitation for the audience to look in and move from outside to inside. A large parentheses frames the entrance door – what spaces of thought does it enclose? What lies between these signs? The text on the window offers further clues about the themes within: the atmosphere thickens.
 

Melanie Jame Wolf opens up a scene in the exhibition space without stage directions, without clear guidelines, but with plenty of room for individual positioning. She creates an installation of three textile Thresholds that linger in the room as sculptural passageways. Like the double-headed Janus figure from Roman mythology, these sculptures wear two faces. Only one is ever visible in its entirety at a time. To see the other, we must shift our perspective. The artist draws spatially on forms of the proscenium – the decorative arch that often frames traditional theatre stages – referencing her background in performance. These textile Thresholds are both a stage set and, alongside us, the protagonists of the scene: they wear scales, resist fixation, wear ceremonial fabrics. In their very materiality lies a stubborn form of unruliness – always open to transformation, but never fully subject to control. Every stitch marks an intervention, a moment of labour, care, or vulnerability. 
 

Are we there yet?
 

The exhibition provides space for contemplation and gives a stage to feelings of uncertainty. The sculptures act as both invitation and challenge. They ask the audience to pass through them, to explore the myths they carry. The moment we step through a threshold, we position ourselves. A threshold can be crossed by choice – a conscious step into a new phase. But it can also mark a tipping point: a moment after which change becomes inevitable. In either case, beyond the threshold lies something we do not (yet) know – something that brings consequence and transformation. This uncertainty makes the crossing a challenge; perhaps fear of the threshold itself is what causes us to freeze in motion.
 

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

The question from the window text echoes in the room, reminiscent of the ritualised question on long car journeys as a child or with your own children. But what is the destination here, really – where are we trying to go? At a time when social division is dangerously increasing, the textile Thresholds challenge us to make our position visible. A stage she’s going through becomes a space for thinking about transitions: Where do we stand – politically, socially, institutionally? Can we evade the decision and linger in the in-between? Tyranny can already be sensed just beyond the threshold. So how do we move into action?
 

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there?
 

Curators Kira Dell and Laura Seidel previously presented works by Melanie Jame Wolf at their project space Neun Kelche in 2024. Now, they continue the collaboration at the invitation of Antje Weitzel, Artistic Director of Künstlerhaus Bethanien. A varied program frames the exhibition: on the opening night, Melanie Jame Wolf, together with MINQ and Ania Nowak, will present the performance Janus! Janus! Door! Door!. The artist is also working with the curators on the joint text A Staircase. A Threshold. A Door, which will be presented at a table read within the exhibition. A reading by Fatma Aydemir from her novel Djinns, focusing on states of threshold, followed by a conversation with the artist and curators, rounds off the program.