by Carolina Sculti // Jan. 27, 2026
Remnants of archival photographs, poetry and letters from loved ones reverberate with nostalgia in Galerie im Turm, forming a series of collages in Jamila Barakat’s solo exhibition, ‘Hoffnung أمل.’ A German-Palestinian interdisciplinary artist, Barakat explores remembrance as a form of resistance and the search for belonging as an ongoing, ever-changing practice.
The first work we encounter, ‘Obstallee,’ is named after the street in Spandau she moved to as a child and centers a painted Khobiza plant, a leafy green mallow native to Palestine and known for its resilience in harsh conditions. On a nine piece wooden grid, the work combines poetry, photographs and painted figures fading into the landscape behind the Khobiza, the grooves in the wood mimicking rivers, valleys or sunsets.
Jamila Barakat: ‘Hoffnung,’ 2026, installation view // Photo by Dani Hasrouni
Dispersed throughout the work are golden spheres symbolizing the Jaffa orange—once the pride of Palestinian agriculture, later appropriated for global export and now reimagined as a symbol of rebellion and transiency. Combining painted Palestinian elements alongside artifacts of her family’s journey to Germany, the work embodies the fragmentation of her concept of “home,” one that feels warm, familiar, even surreal, but exists only as a patchwork of memories. The piece evokes a feeling of solidarity in commemorating a once shared and cherished reality.
Each element of the collage is nestled between or beneath leaves of the Khobiza, and the roots of the plant are covered with a mixture of English, German and Arabic phrases, among them, “the Arab who stayed, the Arab who left.” The Khobiza centers the viewer, reminding us that our sense of home and belonging transcends our individuality, even our family ties, and remains rooted in the land we share.
Jamila Barakat: ‘Hoffnung,’ 2026, installation view // Photo by Eric Tschernow
‘Amal (أمل),’ the Arabic word for hope, is cast in thick concrete and hung sturdily against an expanse of grey plaster on the gallery’s back wall. The work embodies hope’s endurance: using concrete as her medium, Barakat materializes resilience and durability. Her placement of the work in the back of the gallery, not visible from the entrance and nearly camouflaged against its backdrop, also point to a sense of persistence, in spite of its potential invisibility.
Jamila Barakat: ‘Hoffnung,’ 2026, installation view // Photo by Eric Tschernow
Directly across from ‘Obstallee’ is a series of eight collages, ‘Dhakira,’ its title referring to memory, recollection or the act of remembering. Contrasting with the warm, soft tones in ‘Obstallee,’ ‘Dhakira’ explores the dark, spiralling place of lost memories, people and stories. Scattered throughout the collages are photographs with smudged away faces, drips of black paint, sharp, chaotic movement of pencil and greyscale, barren landscapes: an emptiness, despair and loss of hope. But it is the darkness that connects these collages, fighting to make themselves known again through their unity. Her series reimagines the imposed borders faced by Palestinians, as both physical divisions and fractures in memory, reuniting what has been scattered through a collective witnessing and resistance to erasure.
Jamila Baraka: ‘Hoffnung,’ 2026, installation view // Photo by Dani Hasrouni
The final piece in the show, ‘Same Sky, Different Light,’ hangs in the center of the gallery, a photograph of a setting sun on textile, taken at her family home in Northern Germany. Printed on fabric and activated by projections, the piece breathes a slow rhythm into the exhibition space, contrasting with the political urgency of her other works. This unifying, setting sun is Barakat’s final gesture towards hope—the universal insistence to rise again, and the warmth that we always return to.
In ‘Hoffnung أمل,’ Barakat displays the power of our human urge to collect and to cherish; to pour meaning into what is stuck in time or space and carry it with us. Across tenderness and darkness, belonging and fracture, the works gathered here insist on resistance, continuity and hope.
Exhibition Info
Galerie im Turm
Jamila Barakat: ‘Hoffnung أمل’
Closing with Artist Talk: Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026; 7-9pm
Exhibition: Dec. 4, 2025-Feb. 1, 2026
galerie-im-turm.net
Frankfurter Tor 1, 10243 Berlin, click here for map
