Kunsthaus Baselland will present 'Walking on Rubber Eggshells', the first institutional solo exhibition by Basel-based artist and musician Yanik Soland, from 25 September to 15 November 2026. The exhibition brings together Soland’s practice across sound, sculpture and performance, and is framed by a new composition of the same title that will shape the presentation on the museum’s upper floor in Münchenstein, Switzerland.
According to Kunsthaus Baselland, the project develops Soland’s long-running interest in the relationship between sound, material and space. The exhibition asks how sound can be exhibited, and how it can become visible or physically experienced. Rather than treating listening as a purely auditory encounter, the presentation is designed as an environment in which sound, movement and architectural space work together.
Soland’s new installation extends across all three galleries on the upper floor. Sustained tones, flute melodies, sub-bass frequencies and percussion passages form the main sonic material, while the building’s own reverberation is integrated into the work. The artist’s process draws on an archive of recordings, rhythms, melodies and field recordings built up over many years, which he recombines, layers and expands. Collaboration is also central to the work: the exhibition text notes that Soland regularly invites other musicians and artists into his process to record, experiment and improvise.
The installation begins with a spatial intervention that envelops visitors in a soft textile surface that vibrates at irregular intervals. Kunsthaus Baselland describes this as a way of making the bodily dimension of listening immediate, with muffled sounds and altered voices creating a more intimate acoustic space. The exhibition text cites philosopher Salomé Voegelin on the inseparability of listener and sound, underscoring Soland’s interest in listening as a shared condition rather than a detached act.
A key part of the exhibition is a set of two new sculptural instruments developed specifically for the museum in collaboration with Basel-based artist Samuel Tschudin. Strings run through a wall and across clothespin-like structures, turning the building itself into an instrument. The works are freestanding, allowing visitors to move around them and hear the sounds from different positions in the gallery. They are sensitive enough to respond to slight movements and sounds, and they have been enlarged from one of Soland’s earlier miniature instruments built from a tabletop Zen garden, making them playable by performers.
The exhibition also includes material from an album made in preparation for the project, due to be released as an LP by Futura Resistenza in September 2026. In the exhibition, those tracks are broken apart and reassembled asynchronously. Visitors will encounter guitar, vocals, modular synthesizers and self-made instruments constructed from putty knives, steel wool, rubber bands, toys and rakes, alongside percussion instruments, drum machines, flutes and Japanese instruments such as the koto and shamisen. The museum says Soland will activate the instruments with performers at the opening on 24 September and again in a solo performance on 7 November.
Kunsthaus Baselland’s site describes 'Walking on Rubber Eggshells' as an exhibition that explores the sonic qualities of ordinary materials while remaining attentive to fragility and resilience. The museum lists Ines Tondar as curator. The exhibition runs alongside 'Senses Enchanted' at Kunsthaus Baselland, which opens on 25 September 2026, but Soland’s solo project is presented as a separate exhibition on the upper floor.
