The SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT presents the first major solo exhibition in Germany by Bárbara Wagner (born 1980) and Benjamin de Burca (born 1975). Based in Brazil, the duo has been creating video works and installations for over a decade in close collaboration with cultural movements that emerge outside established art institutions.
The tunnel that gives the exhibition its title functions both as a real structure and as a metaphor for artistic expression, cultural resistance, and the negotiation of identity. The focus is on locally anchored, now intergenerational scenes that have emerged from independent youth cultures since the 1970s and 1980s. At the heart of the exhibition is a new production dedicated to the current hardcore scene in Germany—in particular the straight edge movement, which emerged in the 1980s as a "clean" counterculture within the hardcore punk scene on the US East Coast.
This work is placed in dialogue with earlier projects by Wagner and de Burca at the SCHIRN: Estás vendo coisas / You are seeing things (2016) examines the Brega scene in Recife, while RISE (2018) addresses the artistic appropriation of public space by Afro-Caribbean communities in Toronto. All of the works share a collaborative approach: the participating groups are actively involved in the script, music, choreography, and staging, giving their social and political concerns an impressive audiovisual presence.
January 29 to April 26, 2026
