What has already happened has an effect on the photographic image and can act as a trigger for emotions and memories. The latter can be concrete or diffuse, individual or collective, factual or imagined. They are fragments of the past that are initiated and expanded by photography. But should we expect the image to work against forgetting? Or is it not more important to understand the fragmentary nature of photography as a potential to give space to equally fragmentary memories and emotions?
Following a presentation of works by Bokeum Lee and Yuki Furusawa, who are part of the “Feelings & Photography” exhibition, Dr. Sophie-Charlotte Opitz and Jan Borreck will explore these and other questions together with the artists in a panel discussion.
The event will be held in English.
Bokeum Lee (*1996, Seoul, South Korea) is an artist living in Germany and studying for a Master's degree in “Photography Studies and Practice” at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen. In her series “Somewhere Knitted in Blue”, she combines hand-knitted textiles with cyanotype to make memories not only visible but also tangible. The works move between clarity and blurriness - like the memories themselves, which fade, change or have an intense after-effect. Childhood motifs, family photos and everyday scenes serve as emotional anchors and the feel of the textiles evokes deep-rooted feelings. The series invites us to surrender to the fragility of memories and consciously experience their emotional resonance.
Yuki Furusawa is a Japanese photographer and book artist who explores themes such as family, memory and intimacy in her work. She highlights the emotional weight of personal relationships, often drawing on her own family experiences. Furusawa creates artist books that extend these narratives through multi-layered narratives and tactile materials. She earned an MA in Photography at SCAD Hong Kong (2017) and has been nominated for photography book awards such as Fiebre Dummy (2018), Charta (2022) and BUP (2024). In 2024 she won the Festival di Fotografia a Capri. Her work has been exhibited internationally.
Sophie-Charlotte Opitz holds a doctorate in art and media studies and is a curator at the Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg. She has worked as a curator and collection manager at various international museums and cultural institutions, including the Fotomuseum Winterthur (CH) and The Walther Collection (D/USA). In the course of her Thomas Mann Fellowship in Los Angeles in 2023/24, she researched creative strategies of global protest cultures and published the results in a series of articles in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Her research focuses on socio-political image dynamics and visual cultures of remembrance.