As part of the “Düsseldorf Cologne Open Galleries” (DC Open), Anna Laudel Düsseldorf will host the comprehensive solo exhibition by the artist Bilal Hakan Karakaya, titled “Luggage of the Unseen” from September 5 to October 25, 2025. The Düsseldorf Cologne Open Galleries (DC Open) will celebrate its new edition this year, taking place from September 5 to 7. The event features highlights from galleries in both cities, known for their multifaceted and vibrant art scenes. One of the galleries chosen to participate is Anna Laudel Düsseldorf. Marking the start of the autumn art season, this event is organised by the established galleries in Düsseldorf and Cologne, creating a cultural hub for contemporary art in that region and encouraging an exchange between the two eclectic cities.
“Luggage of the Unseen” showcases the broad spectrum of his multifaceted practice and marks his first solo exhibition outside of Türkiye. The exhibition title references the term “Kofferkinder” (“luggage children”), coined in 1985 by Maria Papoulias, describing a generation of children who, due to labour migration to Germany, grew up separated from their families. A similar fate befell Karakaya, who was born in Ankara in 1979. His father migrated to Germany and passed away there, never seeing his son again. Karakaya later studied at Gazi University, became an artist, and moved to Istanbul in 2006. His family story is a representative example of the many biographies shaped and fractured by this experience of migration. And what place could be more fitting than Germany for retracing his father’s footsteps?
At the heart of the exhibition is a symbolic image deeply rooted in migration narratives: the train station. In Istanbul, the Haydarpaşa Station on the Asian side and the Sirkeci Station on the European side historically signified both a departure and a farewell. Built during the fin de siècle by German architects, both stations were expressions of Turkish modernization. These architectural landmarks offered a first point of contact with Europe, blending Byzantine elements with Western design principles. Karakaya’s journey to Germany, beginning, metaphorically and perhaps literally, at one of these stations, triggers a deeply personal excavation of memory and influences the works from various creative phases on view at Anna Laudel Düsseldorf.
Viewers experience sculptures from various creative phases, composed of diverse materials such as stone, metal, and wood. Inside one suitcase, for instance, magnetised granules assemble into the mirrored silhouette of a train station, moved by a magnet operated through code written by the artist. Other suitcases open to reveal metal rods and coloured glass inlays that form urban-like structures, backlit by diffused light that seeps through the mosaic glass.
Labyrinthine urban forms recur throughout Karakaya’s practice, sometimes inspired by real cities, sometimes imagined. These hybrid structures, often spherical or mirrored, are knotted into dense networks with no beginning or end. Viewers also encounter humanoid figures, from whose heads flowers grow. Suspended in a dreamlike stillness, these figures carry the burden of biographical baggage and the psychological weight of inherited memory and migration.
“Luggage of the Unseen” will be on view at Anna Laudel Düsseldorf from September 5 to October 25, 2025.