In this intimate exploration, Mika Sperling breaks a family and societal taboo. With vulnerability and resilience, she confronts her trauma through three visual narratives. Evidence-like pieces, punctuated with handwritten notes, immerse us in the heart of her healing process. Through this formal investigation, she raises the question of recovery through the artistic object.

Dans cette enquête intime, Mika Sperling brise un tabou familial et sociétal. Avec vulnérabilité et résilience, elle se confronte à son traumatisme à travers trois récits plastiques. Des pièces à convictions, ponctuée de notes manuscrites, nous immergent au cœur de son processus de guérison. Par cette recherche formelle, elle soulève la question de la réparation à travers l’objet artistique.

I Have Done Nothing Wrong
How does one break a family and social taboo? Mika Sperling tries to address this question in I Have Done Nothing Wrong. Armed through vulnerability and braced by resilience, maintaining a keen awareness of the facts in order to reject violence, the artist expresses the crimes of her grandfather through three complementary series. First, five photographs produced in collaboration with the artist’s daughter on the road from her childhood home to that of the perpetrator. Then, meticulously cut out family photos. And finally, a fictive scenario between a deceased grandfather and an artist looking for answers.

Mika Sperling, ’Passage’ 2022 Artist-in-Residence. During her stay, Mika continues working on her series ‘Your Will Against Mine’. This work consists of various performances in which Mika addresses her relationship with her daughter. Mika “I want it to reflect upon a desire to look for new paths of parenting without verbal and physical violence, while still haunted by the wounds of my own upbringing.” The performances take place at various locations in nature and are documented as moving images. The ‘Passage’ residency programme is very pleased to provide the necessary framework to enable women artists with children to participate in the residency. Find more information about it on Instagram

Rencontres d’Arles – I Have Done Nothing Wrong
How does one break a family and social taboo? Mika Sperling tries to address this question in I Have Done Nothing Wrong. Armed through vulnerability and braced by resilience, maintaining a keen awareness of the facts in order to reject violence, the artist expresses the crimes of her grandfather through three complementary series. First, five photographs produced in collaboration with the artist’s daughter on the road from her childhood home to that of the perpetrator. Then, meticulously cut out family photos. And finally, a fictive scenario between a deceased grandfather and an artist looking for answers.
Gallery: ahoi.space Exhibition Curator: Taous Dahmani

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In Mother Tongue, Mika Sperling (*1990) examines how origins and culture influence interpersonal relationships based on her personal family history. Language plays a key role in this. Her young daughter and her Vietnamese stepmother are the focus of the photographic examination. Sperling experiments with perspectives, close-ups, and reflecting surfaces and shows the surroundings and personal objects of the individuals portrayed.
Trained in a documentary tradition, Sperling represents a new generation of photo-essayists that takes up historical references and processes them in various mediums and objects so as to engage more intensively with the audience.

Upcoming Show: Louis Discovery Award Rencontres d’Arles from July – September 2022

Mother Tongue at the Ahoi Space in Lucerne in 2021

Mika Sperling, born in 1990 in Norilsk, Russia, reflects in her series Mother Tongue on her relationship with her Vietnamese mother-in-law. With the intention of a better understanding, she illuminates various aspects, such as the role of her own little daughter and the influence of origin and culture on interpersonal relationships. Language takes on a key role, as it is a constant barrier between her and her mother-in-law. The artist’s own mother tongue, Russian, is part of her identity, but she must learn it again after a long period of time in order to pass on this part of herself to her daughter, who is expected to possibly act as a link between Mika Sperling and her mother-in-law in the future. In addition to photographs, the artist realizes her project by means of video and sound recordings.

OKS-lab fragt … stayathome.photography / Vollständiger Artikel hier
Während in der Covid-19-Pandemie große Teile des Alltags einschränkt sind, Menschen von Zuhause arbeiten oder ihren Beruf nur zum Teil ausüben können und wieder andere in Quarantäne zuhause isoliert sind, entstehen neue Bedürfnisse, aber auch Ideen der Zusammenarbeit. Yana Wernicke und Jonas Feige riefen zu Beginn der Pandemie in Deutschland ihr Projekt stayathome.photography ins Leben. In einem Interview erzählen sie über ihre Beweggründe und was mit dem Projekt nach der Corona-Krise geschehen soll.

MH: Gibt es innerhalb der bisher veröffentlichten Projekte eines, das euch besonders beeindruckt hat?
stayathome: Unter den derzeit 270 Konversationen auf der Seite sind viele, die uns auf ganz unterschiedliche Art und Weise berührt, überrascht und beeindruckt haben, deswegen fällt es uns sehr schwer, da eine einzelne herauszupicken. Um die Frage trotzdem zu beantworten, würden wir gerne die Konversation zwischen Mika Sperling (aus Hamburg) und Vasudhaa Narayanan (aus Bangalore) erwähnen, die sich ziemlich früh gemeinsam bei uns beworben haben. Wir schätzen sehr, wie sich Mika und 
Vasudhaa in ihrer Konversation aufeinander einlassen und dass jedes Bild eine ehrliche Reaktion auf das vorhergegangene zu sein scheint. Die Fotografien sind nicht nur wunderschön, sondern auch sehr intim, einfühlsam und auf eine angenehme Weise unaufgeregt.

By Marit Herrmann

Aggregate Space Gallery is pleased to host the work of Mika Sperling, SFAI graduate and recipient of the ASG 2018 MFA Invitational Exhibition, with work that takes the viewer into her story, exploring the complexities of her family history and the effects of her multiculturalism. “Before You, Above the Circle” is an introspective journey that transports the viewer by recreating memories through visual imagery and welcomes them into an intimate layer of personal history that explores the complexities of family and place.