Artist Talk

As part of the exhibition Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite by Göksu Kunak, a conversation will take place with the artist, Çağla Ilk (Co-Director of Kunsthalle Baden-Baden), and Alexander Wilmschen (Interim Director and Curator). The discussion will address central themes in Kunak’s work, such as displacement, visibility, and questions of societal belonging in the context of migration.

The title Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite —borrowed from the film of the same name by Tunç Başaran (1989) and the novella by Feride Çiçekoğlu (1986)—serves as a metaphor in Kunak’s practice for the challenges of migration, the desire to break imposed boundaries, and the resilience needed to do so. The artist talk will introduce Kunak’s façade installation on the exterior of the Kestner Gesellschaft, the installation piece in Café Tender Buttons, and the opening performance from April 25.

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 will return as artistic director in the 2025/26 season. Since 2020, she has co-directed the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden with Misal Adnan Yıldız. In 2024, she curated the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. 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.