LAURA ORTEGO

LAS COSAS - NESNELER

20.05. - 13.06.2026

Akarsu Yokuşu Sok. No:3, Istanbul

OPENING: MAY 20, 18:00

Wednesday–Saturday, 3pm–7pm

The origins of this series date back to 2004, when Laura Ortego asked the women in her family to lend her a personal object so that she could photograph it. Her grandmother, mother, and aunt all took part in the process, passing on fragments of their memories and intimate histories in the process. Set against the backdrop of her native Patagonia, the images bear witness to these lives and family mythologies, so different from those of the men who had often left home to work elsewhere.

Later, during her travels in China, Japan, and Turkey, Laura Ortego invited women she met to share the story behind a cherished object, which she then photographed in contexts disconnected from the oral narratives she had received. The object for the object itself, in all its significance. Intimacy delicately made public and the private transformed into something collective.

Placed against equally delicate backgrounds that sometimes blur the scale of the objects, our gaze moves from a perfume bottle to a measuring tape, a medicine box, an old photograph, a hair clip, or a telephone. Who knows what lies behind these objects besides their owners and the artist herself? Yet through the care given both to their selection and to the photographic gesture, we are allowed access to the preciousness each object holds.

As the series continues to evolve through the artist’s travels, so too does her relationship with the women she encounters and the stories they share. Beginning with a detail from which an entire story unfolds, the images have gradually taken shape through texts that, for now, still remain within the intimacy of the artist, but may one day perhaps be addressed to others. Another quiet space may then emerge, where personal memory can resonate beyond individual experience.

23.05. - 27.06.2026

gr_und, Seestrasse 49, Berlin

OPENING: MAY 23, 18:00

Wednesday–Saturday, 3pm–7pm

Emanuele Resce’s work is shaped by layers, temporal, geographical, and interpretative. These do not simply accumulate; they overlap, intersect, and influence one another, generating complex, sometimes parallel realities. Drawn to what escapes immediate perception, he moves freely between past and present.

This exhibition begins in Istanbul, where the artist spent several weeks. There, he encountered a city formed through successive transformations: Ottoman heritage coexisting with large-scale contemporary urban development, and different religious traditions inhabiting the same architectures over time. This context, together with the encounters he experienced, prompted a reflection on form and meaning, symbol and material, and on the coexistence of multiple temporalities within a single space.

Certain visual references became central to this process. The drawings attributed to Mehmet Siyah Kalem, particularly his depictions of jinn, embody cultural hybridizations between Central Asia and the Islamic world. These figures gradually populated the artist’s studio during the development of the works.

Most of the pieces were produced in Casalbore, a small village in southern Italy where Resce grew up. Returning there after several years in Milan opened a different perspective: that of a place equally marked by layers of history. From Samnite necropolises to Lombard and Norman remains, the territory becomes both a site of investigation and a working material, this time charged with a strong personal dimension.

Time is the central axis of Resce’s practice, though not as a linear progression. Forms, symbols, and narratives do not follow one another, they coexist. The resulting works assemble heterogeneous elements into unstable configurations, suspended between construction and transformation. Blending materials and references, and oscillating between human, animal, and mechanical forms, they appear as contemporary totems carrying both individual and collective memories.

After Istanbul and Casalbore, this line of inquiry extended to Berlin. In a markedly different urban context, the artist continued to explore the relationships between languages, places, and temporalities, while opening his practice to new collaborations, particularly with artists from the street art scene. Departures and returns ultimately converge in this exhibition, which invites the viewer to step into a space where time unfolds differently.