what do we inherit and what do we keep for ourselves
Exhibition duration: 20.09.2025-29.11.2025
Exhibition opening on Friday, February 19.09.2025, 19, from XNUMX p.m. - Admission free!
artists
exhibition Alexei Eisner, Ernstina Eitner, Katharina Reich and Nicole Widner
Event program Alisha Gamisch
What does it mean when origin, language and belonging remain invisible in all their complexity?
The exhibition "What Do We Inherit and What Do We Keep for Ourselves" at the hase29 art space presents four artistic perspectives that explore Russian-German origins, memory, and identity formation. Paintings, sculptures, and installations are on display, navigating the tension between preserving and letting go.
While approximately 2,5 million Russian-Germans live in Germany, their collective heritage remains largely invisible. Their stories are rarely told, often misunderstood, and distorted by the media. The fate of many Russian-German families is marked by expulsion, the loss of their homeland, language, and recognition—experiences that continue to resonate today and are also reflected in the works in the exhibition.
The exhibition title “What do we inherit and what do we keep for ourselves?” is a quote from the poetry collection “Lustdorf” by Alisha Gamisch.
Exhibition view: Passen,- sign, CIAT, Berlin, 2025, with works by Ernstina Eitner (left + center) and Katharina Reich (right)
artists
Alexei Eisner (*1990 Dusty-Kurgan-Tjube/Tajikistan, lives and works in Osnabrück) combines nostalgic, (post-)Soviet narratives with biographical elements of everyday life in his artistic work. Personal and collective memories of the traumas of German-Russian history are interwoven. Eisner presents figurative elements that, with expressive gestures, abraded surfaces, and expressive color schemes, alternate moments of clarity and decay within a single composition, conveying a sense of authenticity and raw emotion.
Ernstina Eitner (*1992, Rendsburg, lives and works in Berlin) is an interdisciplinary visual artist whose practice critically examines social and cultural phenomena. As the daughter of Black Sea German parents from Kazakhstan, her heritage and (collective) memories play a central role in her often research-based work, which utilizes various techniques and materials and primarily includes objects, installations, and drawings.
Catherine Reich (*1987 in Tyumen, Russia, lives and works in Berlin) creates sculptures from everyday objects that address social issues both aesthetically and materially. As a German repatriate, her works are closely connected to autobiographical and political themes. Origin, migration, cultural memory, and the tension between visibility and marginalization shape her conceptual space. Collecting and exchanging found objects is part of her artistic process, which determines the ephemeral nature of her works.
Nicole Widner (*1995 in Melle, lives and works in Münster) develops, among other things, her Russian-German family history into an artistic language that redesigns found objects and spatial situations. In her works, original elements are removed from their semantic context and inserted into new narrative contexts. In this way, she opens up spaces for association, memory, and interpretation – between the familiar and the foreign, fragment and whole – silent narratives about identity, loss, change, and the magic of things.
Event program
Exhibition opening “What do we inherit and what do we keep for ourselves?”
Fri, 19.09.2025, from 19 pm
19.30 pm: Welcome + Introduction
Free entry!
Reading by Alisha Gamisch: “Pleasure Village”
Sat, 27.09.2025, 18 pm
Lustdorf is not Люстдорф, lust is not Ljust, a grandmother is not a granddaughter. Alisha Gamisch's debut is a dialogue between the granddaughter and the grandmother, who "is a grandmother." A dialogue about Putin, borscht, and sex, a language between Cyrillic and Latin, a transliteration of lust as well as trauma: "what do we inherit and what / do we prefer to keep for ourselves?" Gamisch speaks of a Russian-German story told to her by "a grandmother." Of a return that isn't really a return, but a migration; in a mother tongue that isn't really a mother tongue, but grandmother's language: "when a grandmother speaks / I hear two hundred years of frozen language."
Admission free, no registration required
Photo: Sarah Berger
Alisha Gamisch (*1990 in Tegernsee, lives and works in Berlin) studied German and English in Munich and London. She has been a guest at reading series such as books without covers and the Great Day of Young Munich Literature. She has published her texts in literary journals and magazines, most recently in PS-Politisch Schreiben and Mosaik-Magazin. In 2016, she was nominated for the Munich Poetry Prize. In 2016, she co-founded the feminist online magazine wepsert.de, where she writes about feminism and literature and organizes readings. Together with Ani Menua, she curates the "PostOst Café," a literary reading and discussion series organized by the Center for Anti-Slavism Research.
With friendly support
