(love)letters is a quiet archive of what was never said, yet deeply felt. Emerging from shared heartbreaks and conversations about the strange wave of farewells that shaped the year 2024, the project brings together around 35 unsent (love) letters by different authors. Romantic, platonic, bitter, grateful, or unfinished, each letter is a fragment of what remains after love.
A soft collection of voices that never reached their addressees, now shared here. These letters were first presented in the Breakup Room at the beginning of the year and have since been compiled into a publication.
Editor: charlie spiegelfeld
Design: Gihong “Kiki” Park
Printing: Risograph, with the support of Ralf Bacher at HFBK Hamburg
Binding: t*issues angels
With contributions from anonymer Crush, Anna Bielawska, Caroline Marie Ballegaard, Carmen Gray, charlie spiegelfeld, Cherizzz, Estefania Morales, Fine Green, Georgia Orphan, Gladya.S, Josefine Ehs and Siri Viola, Laura Mahnke, Lis O., Luisa Telles, Marisa Sae Nakasone, Maria Júlia Rêgo, Pikhān Khu, Rita Barbro Wilcke, Ruth Brauchle, sophieinexile, Tammy Kim Duong, Vilma Braun, & others who want to remain anonymous
Paintings: @patriciafeliujuarez (cover)
Drawing: @magenuntersuchung
*t*issues publishing, 2025, Hamburg
First edition of 50
currently on sale at obooks, Vienna.
The table was designed and built by me as a display format and potential library of (love)letters.
Textinstallation 2x4m
framed C-Print 18x24cm
Text under glass frame on floor
Regarding institutional silence and the politics of visibility today.
11.07.2025
Believe in Resistance. Do you believe me if I say that this is an artwork?
In solidarity with the recent student actions for Palestine, I feel the responsibility to
make this statement, one that I do not want to leave unshared or unmentioned.
In Germany, and many other parts of the world, student-led actions in support of
Palestine have faced increasing repression by universities, government authorities,
and police.
Expressing solidarity with the Palestinian peoples or publicly criticizing the Israeli state’s
occupation can lead to real consequences: loss of job opportunities, residency permit, institutional
support, or access to networks.
At the previous annual exhibition at our school, we were informed that staff had
been hired to remove every banner, no matter the message.
We still hung the ones we prepared. They disappeared within 10 minutes.
The intention behind our action was to raise awareness among peers that recent
developments in German policy seem to shield the State of Israel from criticism or
accountability, even regarding illegal settlements and war crimes in Gaza, which
the International Court of Justice has stated may plausibly amount to genocide.
As part of the same annual show, we planned to present a work during the annual
exhibition:
an album of drawings by children from Gaza, organized by the group HeArt of
Gaza, accompanied by texts in which the children describe their experiences.
They spoke about stolen land, the occupation, and life under siege.
Following legal review, several drawings and recordings were flagged as potentially
antisemitic by a local lawyer, in collaboration with the Antisemitism Commissioner
of Hamburg. As a result, we were instructed to remove those parts from the
presentation.
This decision was made under institutional pressure, despite disagreement from
those involved.
In conversations with faculty, a professor and practicing artist proposed alternative strategies, framing art as a more acceptable or effective substitute for protest.
We are talking about children’s drawings here.
I believe in standing up for those who are not heard.
I believe there’s a need to resist the systems that silence people who are simply
sharing their realities, livestreamed on our phones.
I might watch this wall be painted over.
But I won’t be the one painting it.
And I will not remain silent.
To quote women’s rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer:
“Nobody's free until everybody's free.”
To describe this picture on the wall:
The poppy flower has long stood for remembrance, rising on fields of conflict,
growing where the ground has been broken.
It carries sorrow, but also resilience.
Today, it’s also seen as a symbol of hope and resistance in many places, including
Palestine.
Do you still believe me if I tell you this is an artwork?
A workshop space ::: in collaboration with Polina Lobanova
The Breakup Room is an interactive workshop and exhibition space that explores the theme of breakups through artistic expression and collective exchange. The aim of the project is to transform personal experiences into collective healing processes through creative formats and participatory approaches that foster resilience, reflection, and dialogue.
The project is being further developed as an ongoing work in cooperation with my newly founded publishing house, t*issues publishing. The workshop series celebrated its debut in Hamburg at the HFBK Annual Exhibition 2025, with a full weekend of diverse programs held in my professors office.
Concept and production: charlie spiegelfeld & Polina Lobanova
t*issues logo by Kenneth Ting-Yu Lin
In collaboration with:
Polina Lobanova, Valentina Karga, Luzia Cruz, Liao Kai Ro, “heartbreak DJs,” Hallo:Radio, AsTa HFBK, Luca, Pohan Chiu, Arantza Peña Popo, and Anthi Sklavenitis
Collaborators:
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On misogyny, androcentrism and the reading of skin.
1x UV Print on Bent Aluminium
75x130 cm
TW: Sexual Harassment
This work is a personal diary entry to a specific event where my former boss read my facial blushing as a form of „sexual“ attraction. As this took me by surprise and brought me in a rather uncomfortable situa-tion. I started to notice how these a.o. events of sexual harrassment have an effect on my sexuality and body in relation to the outside on a daily basis. Manifested on bent alumium „I‘m not blushing cuz I think ur cute* is a slice of dedication to anger and resistance.
exhibited during the annual exhibition at HFBK Hamburg 2024 and "the elephant in the room, in the room the elephant" at iCAT, HFBK Hamburg in 2024.
"An attempt to become stronger showcases the observation of the artist’s body within a certain environment, exploring the definition of strength in the context of gender. The winner’s pose on top of a pedestal contrast the triviality of the man-made artifact used in the performance. By exalting the athletic statue, a new temple can be built in any surrounding.
In addition, a video with the same title was created to reveal how the subjects confidence becomes stronger during the process of lifting the object. This narrative, an act of conquest, contradicts the lightness of the barbell and therefore emphasizes the conflicted ego of the performer."
Together with the photography class at HFBK Hamburg, we set up the online web shop "Media Art and Misfortune" as an alternative show room during the annual exhibition that couldn't take place (IRL) due to Covid. The Video Performance was shown at the group exhibition "SUTURE" at the Goethe Insitute Paris in November 2021 together with the same class led by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.
Novel of Youth (Novelle einer Jugend) is an accumulative project that I have been working on since 2018, aiming at understanding the place in which I came of age in times of political turmoil. The project consists of a photo book and a few video sequences that poetically reflect on the consequences that political decision making in Austria has on the people that call this place - Burgenland - their home.
After the border with Hungary closed in 2016 because of an influx in migration, this part of Austria has become a settlement for state deputies controlling and policing the region. As free passage became impossible for many, others have remained living their realities as they have known it. And t hroughout the making of the work I have been involved in critically portraying the place through my own experience while at the same time always having the repercussions the new regime has on the lives of others in the back of my head.
Navigating between the political and the self in a broken system, I am attempting to humanise, politicise and criticise while leaving space for people to relate to the work by using common tropes found within photographic language and narrative. While the project engages with the political and societal shifts shaping Burgenland, it remains deeply personal, rooted in my subjective experience of coming of age in this place and navigating its evolving realities."
