seeing ghosts
Berlin, June 25, 2025 – We are pleased to present Seeing Ghosts, a contemporary art Xexhibition curated by a collective of young curators from IESA in collaboration with Lage Egal Curatorial Projects, which invites audiences into sensory and emotional encounters with the unseen. Th
Berlin, is the city shaped by its layered history and alive with its own ghosts, carries the weight of memory in its streets and spaces. The city’s unique energy, shaped by division and reunification, trauma and renewal, offers a compelling context for Seeing Ghosts . The exhibition reimagines them as carriers of memory, history, and echoes of those who came before us. These presences reverberate through physical, emotional, and cultural spaces, weaving into our present moment and continuously shifting in real time. Seeing Ghosts brings together four artists from China, Ireland, Japan and Germany to engage with the notion of "ghosts" through diverse cultural and historical lenses—ranging from European sociology and ancient mythology to Shinto beliefs and pop culture. Through drawings, paintings, photography, and video works, these artistic expressions give voice to the unseen, tracing the faint presence of what lingers just beyond perception. Seeing Ghosts invites reflection on presence, memory, and the unseen forces that shape our shared realities. German artist, Anna Maria Podlacha combines personal photographs with found archival images through double exposures and image manipulation. The questions are starting to emerge between visible and invisible, how are collective stories constructed? Can we find individuality in the anonymity of collectiveness? In Echoes of Restoration, Irish artist, Cian McCarthy reflects on the complex experience of receiving a cochlear implant. Through video and sound, he explores how healing is not only physical but deeply emotional and internal. Looking toward Asia, in Japan, people believe that spirits are thought to reside not only in people, but also in all elements of nature, Japanese artist, Iyamari makes the invisible perceptible by her research-based video and sound work inspired by cherry blossoms, a symbol of special significance in Japanese culture. Artist Kurt Yau Kwo Keung comes from Hong Kong draws parallels between his work and the city he based in : layered, fragmented, offering a quiet meditation on pain, survival, and the invisible traces we leave behind.