Nelly Habelt
pause, 2025
Video, Performance
Various video files, 25 seconds each
Camera: Oskar Lohse
Performers: Nelly Habelt, Valentin Huwer
Courtesy the artist
Nelly Habelt (b. 2001, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) is currently studying at Offenbach University of Art and Design. At the centre of her artistic practice is her own body. She describes her work as a visual representation of internal processes—thoughts, desires, and longings. Habelt develops performances in public spaces, carries them out, and documents them. For her, performance and video work exist on equal footing.
Her attention is particularly drawn to inconspicuous, hidden in-between spaces—often defined by brutal architectural structures. These environments become the stage for her interventions. Through her body, she makes contact with her surroundings, connects with them, and remains in complete stillness. Solely through the strength of her own body, she assumes a pose that appears like a frozen moment, so immobile and quiet it could be mistaken for a photograph. Her body seems suspended, weightless. A frozen instant in the midst of urban life, where her delicate form is held still while the city continues to pulse around her. As the camera rotates, the body is rendered as a sculptural form within space.
One of Habelt’s inspirations is parkour—the movement discipline through which traceurs reimagine the city with acrobatic gestures. In Habelt’s performances, the everyday flow is halted and transformed into a poetic moment. The motif of suspension, precarity, and the potential for falling seems to symbolise a broader emotional state. Habelt explains that dreams also play a role in her creative process—she searches for images that give form to moods and feelings. Her body leans into the hardness of the outside world, finding brief moments of support. The ugly becomes beautiful; the contrast between the harsh surroundings and her delicate yet powerful pose produces a rupture in perception. It is an image that draws its strength from contrast.
To preserve these ephemeral interventions in time, she documents them on video. For this, she works closely with cinematographer Oskar Lohse. Camera angles and composition convey the atmosphere while simultaneously transforming public spaces into film or theatrical settings.
According to Habelt, it is the dreamlike stillness of objects that inspires her, especially when chaos unfolds all around.
Nelly Habelt (*2001, Frankfurt am Main, DE) has been studying at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach (DE) since 2023 under Prof. Heiner Blum with a focus on performance. By using urban space as a film and theater stage for her performative video works, she explores its perception in contrast to inner thoughts, desires, and longings.
Together with Len Oswald, she founded the atelier collective Tschatsch77 in September 2024. The collaborative project activates an abandoned industrial building in Offenbach am Main (DE), providing it as a workspace for art students. In March 2025, she will participate in the projection project Off World at the Diamant Museum of Urban Culture, Offenbach am Main (DE).
