Kaleidoscope·of·Time¶
Stories·from·the·Diaspora#
Kaleidoscope of Time was realized from June 2025 to January 2026 as part of the Ottilie Roederstein Stipendium of the State of Hesse. Although initially conceived as a year-long project, it was developed and completed within a condensed production period, resulting in an unusually focused and intensive working process.
The project examines migration through the presence and agency of women living in Kassel. Rather than framing migration as abstraction or statistic, it foregrounds lived experience, voice, and self-representation.
A temporary showroom in central Kassel functioned as a site of encounter, portrait sessions, and recorded conversations. From these exchanges emerged photographic and filmic works later presented both in public space and within the Kasseler Kunstverein im Fridericianum.
Large-scale billboards across the city, textile sculptures, double projections, and the Correspondence Room formed a multi-layered spatial installation. The project deliberately shifted representation from enclosed exhibition formats into the urban environment itself.
Kaleidoscope of Time approaches memory not as retrospective narration but as a forward movement. Migration appears not as exception, but as an integral condition of contemporary European reality.
The·Treasure·box¶
Where·It·All·Began#
From September to November 2025, a temporary open showroom was established in a centrally located former retail space in Kassel: the Treasure Chest.
The location was not incidental. Situated in the heart of the city, the storefront carried the visual codes of exclusivity and consumption. Many of the women later participating in the project had rarely entered such spaces — not because they lacked stories, but because these spaces were not addressed to them.
By transforming this former luxury retail environment into an open site of encounter, the project deliberately shifted the meaning of the space. What had once signaled exclusion became an invitation.
Developed in collaboration with journalist and podcaster Amira El Ahl, the showroom functioned as a hybrid environment: portrait studio, recording space, and conversational room. Participation was voluntary and based on mutual trust.
Rather than producing representation from outside, the project created the conditions for self-articulation within the public center of the city itself.
The·Exhibition·at·the·Kasseler Kunstverein¶
A·Space·That·Dissolves·Thresholds#
In its second phase, Kaleidoscope of Time was presented at the Kasseler Kunstverein im Fridericianum, extending the project from urban public space into an institutional context.
Founded in 1779 during the Enlightenment, the Fridericianum stands historically for public participation. For many of the participating women, however, the building had remained distant — visible in the cityscape, yet not experienced as a space of belonging.
The exhibition deliberately addressed this threshold. Portraits, textile sculptures, double projections, and the Correspondence Room brought the voices and narratives developed in the showroom into the museum space. The installation connected body, language, and memory within a multi-layered spatial structure.
The exhibition attracted a significantly expanded audience, including many visitors who entered the Kunstverein for the first time. In this sense, Kaleidoscope of Time not only presented representation, but altered the social composition of the space itself.
Time·of·Women¶
2025 · Double Projection, HD · 39 min
This 39-minute film was created specifically for the exhibition. It portrays women I met, accompanied, and filmed in Kassel. Each one is a protagonist in her own right, and their movements and gazes weave themselves into a shared rhythm. Like a kaleidoscope, new connections and possibilities emerge. In a world that so often feels like a magnifying glass, the film reveals how essential participation is: the future begins where people become visible and are given space. The strength of this work lies in its experience; it allows us to feel how much becomes possible when voices are seen—and how brightly the future can shine.
Atlas·of·Garments¶
Paths·of·Identity#
The oversized garments become a canvas for excerpts from the women’s stories: first in their mother tongues, followed by German translations. From within, soft fragments of interviews recorded by Amira El Ahl can be heard—audible only at close range, like voices in a quiet forest. In this way, the garments connect with the Correspondence Room, where the stories reappear as written text.
Correspondence·Room¶
Reading·Telling·Resting#
The intimacy and vulnerability of these voices call for attentiveness. Reading here becomes an act of respect. What would migration be without a flashlight—without a light that makes paths visible without dazzling, without a narrow beam that offers orientation while much remains in the dark?
The Correspondence Room is intentionally kept dark. The biographies of the women recorded by Amira El Ahl in the Treasure Chest are not immediately accessible. They resist quick access, cursory reading, and possession. Only through the light of a flashlight do the words begin to emerge—slowly, fragmentarily, at one’s own pace.
Visitors take the flashlights into their own hands and decide where to direct the light, how close to come, and how long to linger. Visibility does not arise on its own here; it is created through a conscious act. Light becomes a responsibility. Reading becomes a relationship: the texts ask for proximity, time, and attention.
HINTERLAND¶
2025 · Double Projection · 17 min
Hinterland was conceived for the ANU – Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. The filmic and poetic work explores how history continues to resonate within a present marked by rising antisemitism and renewed social fragmentation. Its point of departure is the fairy-tale world of the Brothers Grimm, whose stories originated in Kassel. Their symbols, trials, and transformations open the past as a space of resonance.
Developed in response to an invitation to engage with a pioneer of photography, the work takes Gerty Deutsch as its reference point. Drawing on her oeuvre, a distinct visual language emerges—composed of filmed scenes, musical compositions, and original songs.
Hinterland was recently awarded the Golden Hercules.
Public·Space·as·Responsibility¶
Inside·and·Outside#
What begins in a protected interior space moves outward into the city. The decision to refrain from photography indoors continues outside: the portraits gradually appear in public space—at bus stops, on street corners, in front of shops, on advertising surfaces, among lights, posters, and the movement of everyday life.
Where goods, promises, and speed usually dominate, these women become visible. Faces. Gazes that sell nothing, but offer relation. The city becomes an exhibition space—and a space of resonance.
The posters are not decoration. They are presence. They stand in the way, accompany paths, interrupt routines. They carry the women’s stories to where life happens: in passing, in waiting, in pausing.
In this way, the space of the project expands.
The interior resonates outward.
The public becomes personal. Human. Dignified.
