The Berlin-based artist duo Peles Empire received the first scholarship of the Peter Jacobi Foundation for Art and Design in 2021. From 460 applications Peles Empire were selected and entered in March 2021 the art scholarship, which is endowed with 30,000 euros and also includes a teaching position at the School of Design, a publication, financed by the Cultural Office and an exhibition at the Kunstverein.

Exhibition 'you are fire - dressed in fire' from October 15, 2022 to January 15, 2023. 

At the end of the fellowship, the publication "you are fire, dressed in fire" will be published by formerlynotknown.

Katharina Stöver (*1982) and Barbara Wolff (*1980) met while studying at the Städelschule Frankfurt and have been working together as Peles Empire since 2005. Their name derives from Peles Castle in Romania, which is known for its many architectural styles, including Gothic, Renais- sance, Baroque, and Art Deco. In 2005, Peles Empire began creating a photographic reproduction of the castle's rooms. These installations then became the focus of their artistic work in a variety of ways, serving as the basis for both the works themselves and curatorial projects. In these, the duo is always concerned with the concept of the abstraction of an original through its reproduction. In their engagement with the respective local architecture and history, the artists interweave different levels of content and form. Among other things, they develop sculptural objects in which the production process and the specific materiality are part of the work. They transform the exhibition space itself into a site-specific installation. Most recently, their works were shown in exhibitions in Seoul (2020), at E-Werk Luckenwalde (2021), in Innsbruck (2021) and in New York (2022).