Hoffnung أمل
Jamila Barakat
4 Dec–1 Feb 26
Opening: 3 Dec, 6 pm
Hoffnung أمل (EN: hope), a solo exhibition by Jamila Barakat, explores the act of remembering as a form of resistance, and the search for belonging as an open-ended process. Using collage as a central medium, Barakat charts a delicate topography through painting, drawing, text, photography, and sculpture. Voices permeate the room, emenating from a sound installation created in collaboration with Maryam Fazeli.
“What happens when a country forgets how to breathe?”¹
This question resonates like an echo through the exhibition. Collage-making is used as an artistic strategy to piece together fractured and forgotten remains of the visibile and invisibilised, the past and the present. These elements intertwine and open up a space in which memory can become action.
The artworks follow movements between Palestine, Kuwait, the Emirates, Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine, and East and West Germany through to contemporary Berlin. These movements don‘t come together in a neat narrative arc, but unfold into a mosaic of fragments that, taken together, offer possibilities for endurance and survival.
أمل (amal, the Arabic word for hope) is not used here as a promise for the future, but as a daily presence; an enduring spirit that persists even as language fails us. Hoffnung أمل reminds us that the truth can‘t be silenced. One day, it always returns, borne by those who refuse to stop speaking out.
¹ Barakat, „In den Rissen der Stille“, Arts of the Working Class No. 36
EVENTS
3 Dec 2025 | 6 pm
Opening with a performance by the artist and Maryam Fazeli
11 Dec 2025 | 7 pm (EN)
Presentation and discussion with Forensis e.V., moderated by Nahed Awwad
07 Jan 2026 | 7 pm (EN)
Tour with the artist and curator
14 Jan 2026 | 7 pm (DE)
Tour with the artist and curator
24 Jan 2026 | 2 pm (DE)
Collage Workshop for youth hosted by the artist and Elvis Osmanović
31 Jan 2026 | 7 pm (DE)
Closing with an artist talk moderated by Priya Ravi
About the artist
Jamila Barakat is a German-Palestinian interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator from Berlin. Bringing together personal memories and collective histories, Barakat’s work examines the ways in which identity, belonging, and resistance are inscribed into language, archives, and the body. She creates spaces where loss, hope, and transformation come into dialogue with one another.
Barakat is the co-founder of Interspace Collective, a curatorial platform for marginalised and emancipatory perspectives. With Interspace, she creates projects that work toward intercommunity solidarity and accountability. Barakat offers participatory forms of art education to children and youth in the Wedding district of Berlin, using art-making as a tool of empowerment.
As institutions attempt to eradicate the memories of oppressed peoples, Barakat’s work reclaims archiving practices to keep these stories visible in our cultural discourse. She sees the archive as a living witness whose testimonies can offer powerful forms of resistance.
Team
Curation: Frances Breden
Exhibition Design and Production: Carolina Redondo
Sound Installation: Maryam Fazeli
Graphic Design: Dani Hasrouni
Assistance: Charlotte Hentschel
Lead Invigilators: Hassan Elmalik & Daniela Schoepe
Production Team: Amanda, Carlos Busquets, Hassan Elmalik, Felipe Luck, & Juan Saez
Team of Invigilators: Dilara Buzoglu, Antonia Döß, Jennifer Fink, Josepha Holdenried, Lara Jablonski, Tetiana Kornieieva, Luca Kramer, Hannah Papendieck, Polina Piddubna, Marlene Risse, Luise Sandberger, Laura Seif, & Fides Stürmann.
Support: Stéphane Bauer & Sofía Pfister
The Galerie im Turm is run by the municipal government of Friedichshain-Kreuzberg.