Two shows in Germany showcase the work of Professor Sheilah ReStack

Denison Visual Arts Professor Sheilah ReStack and her partner, artist Dani ReStack, have been interested in how queer existence, and, in particular, lesbian or non-binary women, can disrupt and assert existence and possibility. The ReStacks’ work, featured in two shows that opened in Germany in April 2025, expands that inquiry.

A site-specific installation of video and photogram collage, A Filth of Dreams opened April 7 at nw9 Artspace in Köln, Germany.

The installation appropriates murmurations — the swirling flight patterns of starling flocks — to accentuate and contemplate social designations of the aberrant and unwanted. A video of starling murmurations captured in the ReStacks’ back alley fills the gallery’s front window.

Interior walls hold a sprawling installation of 175 photograms titled Dani, can you draw me the books falling?, a body of work that emerges from Sheilah ReStack’s request of Dani ReStack to draw books with their pages being shaken out. The pages depict the numbers Dani ReStack hears in her head during episodes of mania. These drawings are translated using photographic paper and contain journal entries, as well as marks made by the ReStacks’ three-year-old daughter.

Ultimately, A Filth of Dreams serves as a feminist mirage of the world — one where the reviled or the sick become the door opening into the universe of our everyday.

Film festival Videonale 20 opened on April 10 in Bonn, Germany, with a newly commissioned work by the ReStacks, I AM THE FIRST LESBIAN I EVER MET.

This work took shape after the ReStacks met with seven women who answered ads in the Bonn papers for lesbian, queer, or non-binary women interested in participating in video portraits. They recorded the participants at locations of their choosing and included objects that were important to them. These portraits and interactions were compiled into a seven-minute piece titled Open Conch, which showed at Flow artspace for the duration of the festival.

This iteration of I AM THE FIRST LESBIAN I EVER MET included two video portraits of older lesbian/queer-identified women. These portraits occupied the monitors and advertising screens in the city of Bonn throughout the film festival.