Opening: 11.06.2025, 18:00–21:00 Uhr
with a reading by SANNA HELENA BERGER

With works by SANNA HELENA BERGER, WISRAH C. V. DA R. CELESTINO, CEYLAN ÖZTRÜK and FLAVIA TRACHSLER

The group exhibition BE/HOLDING turns our attention to what holds and carries, sustains and strengthens. Carrier structures and display elements are not only considered functional here, but appear as autonomous objects and bodies in spatial and sensory networks of relations. In both a concrete and metaphorical sense, they convey narratives and emotions, while at the same time defining the framework within which they can unfold.

This tension between holding and containing is also reflected in the exhibition title, which refers to the verbs to hold (to support) and to behold (to look at, often with particular attention or a sense of wonder). On the one hand, carrier structures and display elements are essential for presenting artworks and maintaining institutional order; on the other hand, they impose certain perspectives that affect aesthetic experiences and social encounters.The assembled works investigate this interplay between artistic practice and curatorial presentation and shed light on visible and invisible forms of collaboration that become manifest in an exhibition.


BE/HOLDING is curated by MARIE-SOPHIE DORSCH and LISA DEML, together with LUISA THORWARTH. The group exhibition is organised in cooperation with the Kunstraum der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, where WISRAH C. V. DA R. CELESTINO’s solo exhibition Seven Works, curated by ANA DRUWE, will run concurrently.



The exhibition is funded by the Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung. The annual programme at Halle für Kunst Lüneburg e.V. is supported by the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony, Lüneburgischer Landschaftsverband, and Hansestadt Lüneburg.

SANNA HELENA BERGER lives and works in Berlin. Her artistic practice employs site-specific installations, situational aesthetics and post-institutional critique to analyse attributions of meaning and capital in the arts. Alongside this, she works in text form, which either accompanies her work discursively or stands alone as linguistic compositions. Recently, her works have been shown at Antics (Stockholm, Sweden, 2025), Shahin Zarinbal (Berlin, Germany, 2025) and Philipp Zollinger (Switzerland, Zurich, 2024) as well as at Simian (Copenhagen, Denmark, 2025) and Centralbanken (Oslo, Norway, 2024).

WISRAH C. V. DA R. CELESTINO lives and works in Berlin. Using scores, sculptures, texts, photographs, sounds and videos, their artistic practice addresses the continuities of the transatlantic colonial project and its manifestations in institutional structures and linguistic patterns. Their works have been exhibited widely, including at Kunstverein Braunschweig (Germany, 2024), Museu Nacional da República (Brasília, Brazil, 2023) and Framer Framed (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2022). In 2025, Wisrah C. V. da R. Celestino was awarded the ars viva prize.

CEYLAN ÖZTRÜK lives and works in Zurich. Her artistic practice combines sculpture, installation, photography and performance in order to examine normative mechanisms of knowledge production and hegemonic patterns of perception. Most recently, her works have been exhibited at Gessnerallee (Zurich, Switzerland, 2023), as part of the Biennale de l'Image en Mouvement (Geneva, Switzerland, 2022) and FriArt Kunsthalle (Fribourg, Switzerland, 2022). In 2022 she received the Swiss Art Award.

FLAVIA TRACHSLER lives and works in Zurich. In her artistic practice, she engages with architectural structures and speculations and the normative body images and social orders on which they are based. Her works have been part of several group exhibitions, including at Basel Social Club (Switzerland, 2023), Offspace (Zurich, Switzerland, 2022), Istituto Svizzero (Milan, Italy, 2020) and POST (Tokyo, Japan, 2019).