Melike Kara

Melike Kara’s solo exhibition Whispers is presented as part of the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg entitled Alliance, Infinity, Love – In the Face of the Other. It conceives photography not as a static image, but as a circulating, ever-changing medium of memory, identity and transformation.

For the Kunsthaus Hamburg, the artist creates a large-scale installation in which, for the first time, she burns photographs from her own archive and, once turned into ash, integrates them into the space. What remains are traces – fragments of images eluding fixation. Building on Kara’s long-standing exploration of her Kurdish heritage, the exhibition focuses on belonging and transformation. Visitors enter a fragile garden: paintings cover the floor; images made from coffee grounds permeate the space like sedimented traces of the past. Plants grow in certain areas; water collects in basins. The result is a sensory space that invites us to consider identity as something that is in a state of constant flux.

Viewed within the context of the Triennial of Photography, the exhibition condenses the key themes of this year’s festival: Alliance as a fluid, ever-evolving relationship between images, bodies and stories; Infinity as an unresolved, ongoing process of memory and change; and Love as a delicate form of closeness and belonging that requires care and openness.

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