Cihan Çakmak, when we leave, 2024 (2018 − ongoing), FineArt Print auf Aludibond, gerahmt, 75 x 100 cm, courtesy the artist © Cihan Çakmak

"I make art because I have to. I shouldn't make art. My mother says. The men in the art world say. The art world says. But I do. I see."   − Cihan Çakmak
 

In its 75th anniversary year, the Museum Morsbroich is presenting the first solo museum exhibition by Cihan Çakmak (b. 1993, lives and works in Berlin and Lisbon). Using various media—photography, drawing, video, sound, and text—Cihan Çakmak weaves fragments of personal experience with collective spaces of memory and explores questions of identity, origin, transgenerational trauma, and feminist self-realization.

Drawing on her own identity, Cihan Çakmak confronts us with a figure who appears strong, angry, and vulnerable. At the same time, her work navigates an ambivalent relationship between exposure and concealment, emancipation and vulnerability, thereby creating space in which to ask contemporary, socially critical questions: How do cultural narratives inscribe themselves onto the body, psyche, and perception? How do these experiences persist across generations, and how can they be made visible, shifted, and resolved?

It is through an interplay between diverse cultural references and media that Cihan Çakmak’s works establish a tension between construction and immediacy, between external imagery and internal experience. Identity is not presented as a fixed point, but instead is positioned in relation to other bodies, images, memories, and history. The self-portrait plays a key role in this context. The self-image serves as a projection surface for the gaze of others and, at the same time, as a means of deconstructing normative role attributions and inherited expectations. Self-presentation becomes a tool for self-empowerment and resistance—revealing oneself an act of rebellion.

The exhibition shows approximately 60 works and, in addition to photographs, video, and sound pieces, is the first to comprehensively showcase Cihan Çakmak’s drawings, which she has been creating since 2019.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by SHIFT BOOKS, featuring contributions by Şeyda Kurt, Maike Salazar Kämpf, Cihan Çakmak, and Thekla Zell. The catalogue is supported by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung under its support prize “Catalogues for Young Artists”.

Curated by Thekla Zell

Opening: Sunday, July 12, 2026, 12 noon

Supported by

PROGRAM

Artist Walk & Talk.
Guided tour of the exhibition with Cihan Çakmak & Thekla Zell (curator)
Sunday, September 6, 3 p.m.
Sunday, November 8, 3 p.m. (Closing event)

Slow Art & Artist Talk.
Video screening of where I left you by Cihan Çakmak & conversation with the artist
Sunday, October 4, 3 p.m.

Public tour of the exhibition (no registration required)
Sundays, 3 p.m.: July 19, August 2, August 30, October 25

Slow Art. We take our time.
A leisurely tour focusing on individual artworks, followed by a discussion
Sundays, 3 p.m.: Aug. 9, Nov. 1

Queers + Family & Friends.
Special tour of the exhibition
Sunday, July 12, 10 a.m.

Family tour and open art workshop. For parents, friends & children (no registration required)
Sundays, 2 p.m.: Aug. 2, Sept. 6, Oct. 4, Nov. 1

Klub M – The Art Club for Teens. From Selfie to Portrait (no registration required)
Wednesdays, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m.: Sept. 9, Oct. 14, Nov. 11

Together at Museum Morsbroich. Family and Neighborhood Festival
Guided tours and workshops related to the exhibition
Sunday, Oct. 18, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Registration | Information
+49(0) 214/406 4500 | info@morsbroich.de