Melike Kara

Melike Kara Whispers June 5 – August 23, 2026 Kunsthaus Hamburg

Melike Kara’s artistic practice has operated at the intersection of personal archival research, collective historiography, and painterly translation. At Kunsthaus Hamburg, she radicalizes this approach by, for the first time, burning photographs from her own archive and transforming them into ash. What remains are traces: fragments, condensations, and material residues of images that resist fixation. Photography no longer appears as a medium of preservation, but rather as a state of continual dissolution and reconfiguration.

The point of departure for the newly conceived, site-specific installation at Kunsthaus Hamburg is Kara’s sustained engagement with her Kurdish heritage, which she has researched, archived, and processed artistically over many years. In doing so, the artist has deliberately focused on the beauty of Kurdish tradi- tions—beyond narratives of suffering, persecution, and political categorization.

Whispers marks a significant shift in this inquiry. Rather than representing identity, the artist asks how it might be integrated—or even dissolved. What remains when the stories we tell about origin and belonging begin to lose their contours? What forms of perception emerge when cultural ascriptions no longer occupy the center of attention?

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 re- lationship between images, bodies and stories; Infinity as an ongoing process of memory and change; and Love as a delicate form of closeness and belonging that requires care and openness.

Curated by Anna Nowak.