Installation by Bilge Emine Arslan

26+27 JULY 2025

As part of her long-term project Grapes, Land, and Resistance, artist Bilge Emine Arslan initiates a letter-based exchange between her aunt Hatice Sönmez in the village of Çolaklar, southeastern Turkey, and Gülistan Yılmaz, who is part of a community garden in Berlin. Rooted in ancestral memory and family archive research, the project reflects on the role of women in preserving land-based knowledge through everyday practices. The correspondence offers a poetic space for sharing everyday routines, ecological practices, and reflections on land-based resilience across two different geographies. Through a small series of personal letters, the project connects lived experiences shaped by care, cultivation, and storytelling.

BILGE EMINE ARSLAN is a Berlin-based visual artist, researcher, and art mediator whose work weaves personal narratives and collective memory. Originally from İskenderun, Turkey, her artistic journey is shaped by themes of migration, identity, ecology, justice production and our evolving connection to landscapes. Holding an MA in Spatial Strategies from Weißensee Kunsthochschule, Bilge Emine creates her projects with a variety of media, including video installations, photography, ceramics and drawing. Her projects have been displayed in various exhibition spaces like Spore Initiative–in the scope of Berlin Art Week–and Kunsthaus Bethanien. She has received support through grants such as DAAD Promos for her field research and has continued to explore the intersections of narratives and socio-political landscapes as an artist-in-residence at ZK/U in Berlin.

SATURDAY 26 JULY - 16:00 - 20:00, Guided Tour / Introduction to the project: 17:00 
SUNDAY 27 JULY 2025 - 11:00 - 13:00, 18:00 - 23:00 
Free entrance