Führung durch die Ausstellung Whispers von Melike Kara

Melike Karas’s solo exhibition*Whispers* conceives ofphotography not as a static image, but as a circulating, ever-changing medium of memory, identity, and transformation. For the Kunsthaus Hamburg, the artist has created a large-scale installation in which, for the first time, she burns photographs from her own archive and transforms them into ash within the space. What remains are traces—fragments of images that elude fixation. Building on Melike Karas’s long-standing exploration of her Kurdish heritage, the exhibition focuses on belonging and change. Visitors enter a fragile garden: a frieze of coffee grounds runs through the space like a sedimented trace of the past. In some areas, plants grow; water seeps from the walls and collects in basins. The result is a sensory space that invites visitors to conceive of identity as something that is constantly changing.

In a dialogic tour, curator Anna Nowak provides insight into the exhibition’s content.