short vita

Gabi Schillig explores experimental, dialogical spaces, their relationship to the body, the agency of materiality and spaces of communication. Her artistic research is centred on the concepts of fragility and softness, which she examines as spatial, material, relational and social phenomena.

She studied Architecture at in Coburg and completed a postgraduate program in Conceptual Design at the Städelschule – State Academy of Fine Arts Frankfurt am Main.

Since 2008, she has been developing artistic and projects through her Studio for Dialogical Spaces in Berlin.

From 2012 to 2018, she served as Professor at the Düsseldorf Peter Behrens School of Arts. Since 2018, she has been Professor for Spatial Design and Exhibition Design in the study program of Visual Communication / Institute for Transmedia Design at the Berlin University of the Arts.

Since 2021, she has been a member of the Advisory Board of the Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW (HGK) and, since 2016, an academic mentor for the German Academic Scholarship Foundation - Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

Her work has been presented internationally in exhibitions, interdisciplinary contexts and manifold collaborations. She has received numerous fellowships and awards, including residencies and grants amongst others, from Akademie Schloss Solitude, the Van Alen Institute New York, the Nordic Artists’ Centre Dale, KHOJ International Artists’ Association New Delhi, Largo das Artes Rio de Janeiro, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, and the Nida Art Colony / Vilnius Academy of the Arts. In 2026, she realized a dialogical exhibition with dancer and choreographer Yui Kawaguchi at the Japan Cultural Institute Cologne – The Japan Foundation.

Since 2023, Gabi Schillig has been working regularly in Japan. She has been Artist-in-Residence at Saiko Neon (Yamanashi Prefecture) and a guest at ACAC Aomori Contemporary Art Center, 6okken, Space Department Nara, and Saruya AIR. Her work was featured in a solo exhibition at the Kobo Chika Gallery, Tokyo. She has taught internationally and has given lectures at Tama Art University, Musashino Art University, Tamagawa University, Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai), and the Graduate School of Design, Kyushu University. 

For the period 2026–2028, she has been invited, as part of a collaboration with the Kobe Institute for Atmospheric Studies (KOIAS) and the Graduate School of Humanities, Kobe University, to further develop her artistic research on 'topologies of softness'.
 

Links

www.gabischillig.de

www.spacesofcommunication.de