About this Event
Traces of Memory, an exhibition that opens a quiet dialogue between memory, time, and inner experience.
Traces of Memory is a solo exhibition by Prof. Dr Lütfü Kaplanoğlu, taking place between 19 January and 6 February 2026, and organised by the Yunus Emre Enstitüsü - London, with curatorial support from GOYA. Curated by Yaman Pakdil, the exhibition brings together a series of works that explore the fragile boundaries between memory, time, and the human inner world through a contemporary artistic language.
Kaplanoğlu’s paintings are centred around solitary figures, always seen from behind. These figures are not anonymous bodies, nor do they seek to define identity. Instead, they function as thresholds, inviting viewers into an interior landscape shaped by sensation rather than narrative. Memory here does not return as a complete image, but as fragments: a colour, a gesture, a feeling that quietly resurfaces.
What distinguishes Kaplanoğlu’s work is the way the viewer becomes a silent participant. As the distance between subject and observer gradually dissolves, attention shifts inward. One begins by looking at the figure, and almost without noticing, begins to look at oneself. In this sense, memory becomes the medium through which the works are experienced.
The exhibition’s curatorial framework draws on the idea of memory as a soft, malleable material, something that bends, compresses, and reshapes itself over time, much like memory foam. Building on this idea, Traces of Memory extends beyond the painted surface through a participatory installation titled The Memory Wall. Visitors are invited to leave a single word in response to the works, capturing whatever the paintings awaken within them.
As the exhibition unfolds, these words accumulate, overlap, and sometimes contradict one another, forming a collective emotional topography shaped by individual traces. In this way, the viewers become an integral part of the exhibition, completing a living archive of shared remembrance.
Traces of Memory invites audiences to reflect on how memory is formed, carried, and quietly sustained, and how the most enduring impressions are often those we can only approach indirectly.
📍 Yunus Emre Enstitüsü - London
🗓 19 January – 6 February 2026
🎟 Free entry | Registration is required.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Yunus Emre Enstitüsü - London, 10 Maple Street, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
