From November 2023–March 2024, soft power soft power worked with Zeal Studios for a series of mentoring sessions in the framework of their self-initiated and self-organised 4-month residency program. Pivoting around the notion of networked technology, the residency artists Laura Radzewicz, Lena Peplińska, Lea Dippold, Lisa Dieterle, Veronika Marxer and Vera Kamea critically engage with the topics of fan- and autofiction, technical imagination and post-historical spiritual practice.

During the residency, Veronika Marxer investigated the concept of “being a girl online,” exploring avenues to authentically capture the essence of the experiences unique to growing up as a girl on the internet. Also in reference to childhood experiences, Vera Kamea investigated the character of Kim Possible as one of the only leading female protagonists in early 2000s tv history, turning Kim Possible into a narrator to deconstruct experiences of societal escape, hope for change and controlled safety bubbles. Navigating such longing for connection via systems of fandom, modes of escapism, obsession and substitution, Lea Dippold invited public figures – who were and are her best friends, lovers, confidants, and inspirations — as a surface for identification and projection. Lisa Dieterle similarly ventured into realms of ambiguity, transformation, and the interplay between imagination and reality during the residency, enmeshing the digital and the physical in her work in a series of birch wood carvings that serve as a contemporary reinterpretation of Alemannic Fasnacht masks – a tradition deeply rooted in the Carnival season's celebration of freedom and emotional release. Meanwhile asking what the genuine ‘“self’” is and questioning the uncanny zones where it might merge with pure data in an endless cybernetic feedback loop, Xtreme Girl (Laura Radzewicz and Lena Peplińska), a storytelling tech-corporate mascot, attempted to decipher the causes of identity despair in a curated range of video essays. 

Zeal Studios was founded in 2023 by Veronika Marxer and Vera Kamea with the mission to support young artists’ career development and visibility by offering resources and a platform as well as a thriving and dynamic community. soft power soft power accompanied the Erasmus+-supported residency program through collective mentoring sessions that focused on the residents' artistic development, project management, written output such as artist statements, as well as curatorial consulting. The residency culminated in the group exhibition You are always at the beginning & always at the endwhich opened on March 28, 2024 at Council+ (curatorial team Émonie Fay Chetwin, Tim Rosenbaum and Mike Morlock).