Artist Talk

As part of the exhibition Don't Let Them Shoot the Kite by Göksu Kunak, there will be a discussion with the artist and Çağla Ilk, the designated director of the Maxim Gorki Theater. The artist talk will be moderated by Alexander Wilmschen and Emilia Radmacher, who jointly curated Kunak's project at the Kestner Gesellschaft. The focus will be on Kunak's façade installation at the Kestner Gesellschaft, the installative work in Café Tender Buttons and the performance for the opening on April 25, 2025.

Göksu Kunak is an artist, researcher, and writer based in Berlin. Their work focuses on chronopolitics and hybrid text forms, exploring performative expressions of contemporary life as well as non-Western and unconventional dramaturgies. Influenced by Arabesk culture and late-modern societies, Kunak develops speculative scenarios based on real encounters that highlight the issues of heteropatriarchal structures.

Çağla Ilk is an architect, dramaturge, and curator. She studied architecture in Berlin and Istanbul and works across disciplines at the intersection of art, urban development, and performance. Until 2020, she worked as a dramaturge and curator at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin and returns as its Designated Director (2026—2027) in the 2025/26 season. 2020—2025 she has co-directed the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden with Misal Adnan Yıldız and curated the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2024. Çağla Ilk lives and works in Berlin.

Alexander Wilmschen is Interim Director and Curator at the Kestner Gesellschaft. He studied art history and philosophy as well as Art History in Global Context in Düsseldorf and Berlin. Since 2022, he has curated group and solo exhibitions featuring artists such as Rebecca Ackroyd, Tracey Emin, Klára Hosnedlová, and Anna K.E. Alexander Wilmschen lives and works in Hanover and Berlin.