Pho­to­gra­phy as a space of me­mo­ry — the ex­hi­bi­ti­on “Aber Ich die Welt ich se­he Dich” at the Ham­bur­ger Kunst­hal­le*

Wi­th the ex­hi­bi­ti­on “Aber Ich | die Welt | ich se­he | Dich*”, the Ham­bur­ger Kunst­hal­le is show­ing the com­ple­xi­ty of pho­to­gra­phic art as a space of me­mo­ry and pro­jec­tion sur­face for re­mem­brance, iden­ti­ty and so­cial re­flec­tion as part of the 9th Tri­en­ni­al of Pho­to­gra­phy 2026. In th­ree chap­ters, works by around 40 in­ter­na­tio­nal ar­tists from dif­fe­rent ge­ne­ra­ti­ons un­co­ver traces of histo­ry, re­flect on per­so­nal and coll­ec­ti­ve ex­pe­ri­en­ces and open up a new per­spec­ti­ve on the image as a li­ving ar­chi­ve. His­to­ri­cal land­scapes and pho­to­gra­phic de­tails, such as Hen­ry Fox Tal­bo­t’s “The Haystack” or Hi­ro­mi Tsu­ch­ida’s “Cam­phor Tree” from Hi­ro­shi­ma, in­ter­wea­ve in­di­vi­du­al frag­ments of me­mo­ry wi­th a glo­bal ar­tis­tic nar­ra­ti­ve.

Shadows, op­ti­cal de­vices and re­a­dy-ma­des ta­ke cent­re stage in the se­cond sec­tion, in which ar­tists such as Mar­cel Duch­amp, Sher­rie Le­vi­ne and Fisch­li & Weiss ex­plo­re the in­ter­ac­tions of forms, tech­ni­ques and ide­as, rai­sing ques­ti­ons about the eco­lo­gy of at­ten­ti­on. In the third sec­tion, image pro­to­cols and ar­te­facts be­co­me poe­tic and po­li­ti­cal ob­jects that enable new forms of in­ti­ma­cy and me­mo­ry. Works by Ti­na Mo­dot­ti, Bah­man Ja­la­li and Kha­di­ja Saye com­bi­ne aes­the­tics and so­cial rea­li­ty, ma­king it pos­si­ble to ex­pe­ri­ence the in­ter­play bet­ween co­lo­ni­al histo­ry, la­bour and ima­gi­na­ti­on. The ex­hi­bi­ti­on in­vi­tes vi­si­tors on a jour­ney th­rough the lay­ers of vi­su­al mea­nings and opens up sen­sual­ly and in­tellec­tual­ly mo­ving per­spec­ti­ves on the world and the Other.