Exhibition Dates
20 August > 8 November 2026
Exhibition Opening
Saturday 22 August 2026, 1 - 4 pm.
ACCESSIBILITY
Wheelchair Accessible
Assistance
Animal
Visual
Rating 75%
Quiet
Space Available
The Letting Go (2012–2026) marks the culmination of fourteen years of encounters between artist Natascha Stellmach and participants from around the world, centred on the question: “What would you like to let go of?” An intimate performance practice shaped by the intersection of visual art, psychotherapy, embodied research and Buddhism, it unfolds through a participatory process developed by Stellmach that defies categorisation. Best known for its Bloodline tattoo—a word tattooed without ink—the work extends beyond the tattoo itself, unfolding into an evolving body of participant stories, photography and artistic research.
The exhibition, presented across Linden’s Atrium and Foyer Galleries, is a site-specific installation featuring new photographic and mixed-media works, including participatory installations that invite contemplation, rest and engagement.
The opening work acts as a ‘curtain of skin’, created from the artist’s own letting-go performances, and invites audiences to physically move through it, experiencing it through their own bodies. This enveloping, tactile encounter echoes the project’s ethos of openness, care and the trust that underpinned all the performances.
Beyond this, visitors discover works that continue the central enquiry, inviting contemplation around the question: “What would you like to let go of?” A final space contains a work that embodies the artist’s own transformation. It invites the visitor into an intimate encounter that marks the end of this fourteen-year journey of stories shared and carried, while heralding the beginning of Stellmach’s next creative chapter and future collaborations.
The exhibition is accompanied by a major new artist book, serving as both documentation and testament to the project. Spanning over 350 pages, it features 130 previously unpublished stories of vulnerability and empowerment, told through photographs, participant selfies and testimonials. The book includes a foreword by acclaimed actor Sandra Hüller, alongside essays by Australian writer and curator Kelly Gellatly and Dr Matthew McArdle, President of the Australian Psychoanalytical Society. Together, it celebrates what the artist calls “the wonder in our wounds”, honouring both the process and the people who shaped it.
Together, the exhibition and book form a powerful closing gesture, bringing the project and the community it has created into perpetuity.
Natascha Stellmach’s 30-year interdisciplinary practice explores the transformation of fear, vulnerability and taboo. Working across image, text and performance, she draws on her background in therapy, with projects developing through the body, installation and artist books. Research, participation and collaboration are integral to her process.
With works held in international collections, Stellmach has exhibited at documenta (Kassel), MACBA (Barcelona), MAK (Vienna), PICA (Perth) and ACP (Sydney). Her practice has received support from Creative Australia, Creative Victoria, the Australia Council, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Arts Victoria, the University of Melbourne, the Sidney Myer Fund, NAVA, Sir Edmund Herring Memorial Foundation and Goethe-Institut, among others. She was also awarded residencies at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Cité Internationale des Arts (Paris), and Goethe-Institut/Sana Sanaa (Nairobi).
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