> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.catapult-platform.art/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A Body That Keeps Arriving in Countries Where It Does Not Speak the Language - URL: https://www.catapult-platform.art/elen-braga-neuer-aachener-kunstverein-nak-aachen/ - Published: 2026-06-05T04:01:12.000Z - Updated: 2026-06-20T12:48:05.000Z - Description: NAK Aachen presents Elen Braga's first institutional solo exhibition: textile installations on migration, xenophobia, and identity. Through 26 July 2026. - Author: Dominique Catherina Foertig - Tags: Exhibition, Memory & Identity, Body & Feminism ## NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein Presents Ich bin wie du in Aachen [**NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein**](http://www.neueraachenerkunstverein.de/content/?ref=catapult-platform.art) presents *Ich bin wie du*, the first institutional solo exhibition by [**Elen Braga**](https://www.elenbraga.com/?ref=catapult-platform.art), curated by [**Maurice Funken**](https://www.instagram.com/maurice%5Ffunken/?ref=catapult-platform.art), through 26 July 2026. ![neuer Aachener Kunstverein , nah, current exhibition](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-installation-view-10.webp) ****Elen Braga,** **Ich bin wie du*, 2026; **Drone*, 2026; **Ode to Antônio Gonçalves Dias*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen**, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, spaceship sculpture Original blue as escape route for migrants and foreigners](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-work-08.webp) ****Elen Braga,** **Original blue*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen,** 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. The show begins with a head. Elen Braga's own, oversized, with fabric arms, installed in the NAK foyer before visitors have chosen a direction. *Bababuá* greets you before the exhibition has officially started. That placement carries weight, arrival, self-projection, the body announced before anything else has been said. --- **Ich bin wie du** **Artist:** Elen Braga **Exhibition:** Ich bin wie du **Venue:** [ NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein ](https://www.nak-aachen.de/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **City:** Aachen, Germany **Dates:** 3 May 2026 – 26 July 2026 **Curator:** Maurice Funken **Photography:** Simon Vogel **Image Courtesy:** Courtesy the artist and [Wouters Gallery, Brussels](https://www.woutersgallery.com/?ref=catapult-platform.art) --- The title borrows from a 1976 disco song by German singer Marianne Rosenberg. A song about recognition, about finding the self in another. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, wide view of first exhibition space with large textile work and staircase sculpture](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-installation-view-03.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **One to zen*, 2026; **Amanhã será outro dia (Tomorrow will be another day)*, 2026; **Papagaio americano (American parrot)*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. Braga takes that premise and runs it through everything that makes equality complicated, such as migration, xenophobia, political violence, the daily reality of learning a foreign language by memorizing its numbers, until the chorus sounds more like a demand than a comfort. > The claim of sameness is not the same as equality. Braga builds that gap into the structure of the exhibition, room by room, until the walls themselves say otherwise. The **NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein** is a kunstverein in the traditional sense: a membership-based institution with a history of supporting ambitious, risk-taking work. For Braga, a Brazilian artist based in Antwerp, showing for the first time in a German institutional solo, the venue is not incidental. Germany, its language, its history, its political present, becomes material in this exhibition. Not backdrop. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, detail of six-meter textile with figurative imagery and text elements](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-detail-04.webp) ****Elen Braga,** **Amanhã será outro dia (Tomorrow will be another day)*, 2026, detail. Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. The route through the first floor is structured like a life history in nonlinear order. *My Grandmother and 50 Years in 5* is a hand-tufted textile sculpture of a woman cooking over an open fire, a chicken in hand. ![Elen Braga, 2026, hand-tufted textile sculpture of grandmother cooking over open fire , catapult contemporary exhibition review](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-installation-view-02.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **My grandmother and 50 years in 5*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, **NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen,** 2026\. Courtesy the artist and ****Wouters Gallery,** Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. A radio plays the voice of former Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek promising a better Brazil. The piece is at once intimate and historical, the domestic detail impossible to separate from the political noise beneath it. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, room view with multiple works including life-size family sculptures and spaceship](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-room-view-05.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **Sunday with my family*, 2026; **At the Right Hand*, 2026; **One to zen*, 2026; **Original blue*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen**, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. ![NAK - Neuer Aachener Kunstverein - Catapult contemporary exhibition review and submission](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-work-06.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **Sunday with my family*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen,** 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. The six-meter textile *Amanhã será outro dia (Tomorrow will be another day)* dominates the first exhibition space. It is dense in religious symbolism, Brazilian presidential failures, COVID graves, the 2014 World Cup final between Germany and Brazil. And a duck. Loosely arranged text elements do not explain the images, they compete with them. Braga has said she must know how to say something before she can identify what it is. The textile works this way, it is a form before it is a thesis. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, staircase sculpture spelling German numbers doubling as ICE FEAR NOISE](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-work-07.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **One to zen*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026**. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. *One to zen* is a staircase-like structure that appears to teach the first ten German numbers. Look closer and the steps double as catchphrases: "ICE," "FEAR," "NOISE." At the top sits a decapitated textile self-portrait of the artist. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, suitcase under No Re-Entry sign alongside textile work](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-installation-view-09.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **At the Right Hand*, 2026; **No Re-Entry*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. Nearby, a suitcase rests under a sign reading *No Re-Entry*. The spaceship in *Original blue* stands ready, the hopeful exit for all aliens, all strangers, all foreigners. The sequence reads as autobiography and as political map at once. The exhibition opened in May 2026, when the rightward political shift Braga references is not historical lesson but running current. The soldiers in gray uniforms who stare blankly at the large red-white-black tapestry *Winter in Germany* are uniformed and conformist by design. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, uniformed fabric soldiers facing large red-white-black tapestry Winter in Germany](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-installation-view-13.webp) ****Elen Braga,** **Winter in Germany*, 2026; **Sir, Nein, Sir!*, 2026; **Tão quente que era que pouco mais era morte (série "Os 12 trabalhos")*, 2015; **The ego*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen**, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, room view with multiple works including life-size family sculptures and spaceship](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-room-view-05-1.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **Sunday with my family*, 2026; **At the Right Hand*, 2026; **One to zen*, 2026; **Original blue*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein**, Aachen, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, upper floor room view with German federal eagle on gold ground and fabric soldiers](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-room-view-12.webp) ****Elen Braga**, **The goldsmith with red beak*, 2026; **The ego*, 2026; **Burn Char Roast*, 2026; **Ode to Antônio Gonçalves Dias*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen**, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and ****Wouters Gallery, Brussels.** Photo: Simon Vogel. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, three rotating textile kebab skewers with hungry pigeons on floor](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-installation-view-11.webp) ****Elen Braga,** **Burn Char Roast*, 2026; **Hungry Pigeons #3, #4, #5*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, ****NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein**, Aachen, 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. The rotating textile kebab skewers of *Burn Char Roast* carry the double weight of ironic affection and xenophobic reality. The titular wall piece in the stairwell includes the phrase "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS" and, despite the song it borrows, a correction: "NICHT WIE DU," not like you. The reversal is placed inside the work's own body. The video *Nevermore* shows Braga in Death Valley, in a foreign land, struggling against landscape and light. It is black-and-white, large-format, and poetic in the way physical endurance can be poetic, when effort is the only legible argument. ![Elen Braga, Ich bin wie du, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen, 2026, installation view with video Nevermore and fabric soldier sculptures](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/06/elen-braga-ich-bin-wie-du-nak-aachen-2026-installation-view-14.webp) ****Elen Braga,** **Nevermore*, 2026; **Sir, Nein, Sir!*, 2026; **Tão quente que era que pouco mais era morte (série "Os 12 trabalhos")*, 2015; **The ego*, 2026\. Installation view, Ich bin wie du, NAK ****Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen,** 2026\. Courtesy the artist and Wouters Gallery, Brussels. Photo: Simon Vogel. One leaves the exhibition having moved through a grandmother’s fire, a Brazilian soap opera, gray soldiers, rotating meat skewers, and the artist’s own severed head at the top of a staircase. The works do not ask for sympathy. They ask you to count to ten in a language you do not speak, and notice what the numbers actually say. By the end, *Ich bin wie du* is no longer a promise of sameness, but a test of who is allowed to be counted as equal. [**Instagram Elen Braga**](https://www.instagram.com/elenbraga%5F%5F/?ref=catapult-platform.art) [**NAK Instagram** ](https://www.instagram.com/neuer.aachener.kunstverein/?ref=catapult-platform.art) [**Maurice Funken Instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/maurice%5Ffunken/?ref=catapult-platform.art) [**Wouters Gallery Brussels**](https://www.instagram.com/wouters.brussels/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **About Catapult Contemporary - Art Platform Submission** This is a exhibition review published by Catapult — an independent editorial platform for contemporary art, based in Vienna. We publish exhibition reviews, artist features, interviews, and critical context, with a focus on emerging and mid-career practices from Europe and beyond. [catapult.art](https://www.catapult-platform.art/) Want to be featured? [Submit your work →](https://www.catapult-platform.art/submit/) --- [Artist in Focus](https://www.catapult-platform.art/artist-in-focus/) ## Can Thread Remember the Body? 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