Dys-play
Duel Against an Invisible Third
2026
Installation with textile breathing masks, drying racks, plastic pipes, tubes, hoses, shower head,
feathers, ropes, resistance bands, fluorescent tubes, lamp, table tennis paddles, table tennis
balls, household objects, and toys over a mirrored table tennis table
Maße
300 x 160 x 400 cm
Located at
Tuchfabrik Trier
Wechselstraße 4
54290 Trier
Exhibition
Rheinland-Pfalz Triennale
24.04. – 31.05.26
Artistic Direction
Dr. Carolin Heel
Norina Quinte
Extended Curatorial Team
Stefanie Schmeink
Jury
Ulla von Brandenburg
Moira Zoitl
Carolin Heel / Norina Quinte
Photographed by
Susanne Britz
At the center of Dys-play is a mirrored table tennis table, overlaid with a mesh of hoses, masks, feathers, pipes, and light. A static field meets a vibrating system—the everyday life of a state of exception transforms into a kinetic metaphor of the pandemic: a duel without an opponent, yet full of reactions. The installation probes the fragile relationship between proximity and distance, between breathing and paralysis.
Dys-play also evokes a decommissioned textile factory. The self-sewn textile masks from a time of collective breathlessness become carriers of a fragile cycle of air and mechanics. Household objects, toys, and technical materials form a precarious choreography in which body and environment continuously mirror one another.
Material becomes metaphor: the textile element spins connections while simultaneously signifying separation.
Within this laboratory-like setting, the private meets the technical: drying racks, lamps, ropes, and pipes form a fragile machinery. The paddle—still hand, not yet machine—responds to an
invisible counterpart.
Dys-play becomes a game against an invisible third—against fear, distance, and the system itself. Air flows through the structure like a ventilator; the installation breathes, pauses, reawakens—an organism between laboratory and living room, between dissecting table and game table, searching for that moment when breathing, playing, and perceiving become one again.