Transcu(rry)ltural moves
2026
Objects (photographic print on paper)
paper, curry ketchup, artist’s body
photos: Krystof Kriz
The photographs are an attempt to negotiate a transcultural identity through Curry Ketchup and Indian ceremonial body practices. Curry Ketchup, seen as quintessentially German, carries colonial and migratory histories: “Curry” was a British invention that simplified Indian spices, many of which also hold ritual uses in India, touching the body in acts of purification and ornament. In Germany, after the war, Currywurst emerged from a chance encounter with British soldiers. Today, Currywurst is as German as Chicken Tikka Masala is British.
Placed instead of ceremonial dyes, the condiment reveals itself as a palimpsest of empire, migration, and everyday life, where food becomes ritual, ritual becomes commodity, and identities are continually remade in translation.
The hand gestures express multiple meanings, sometimes conflicting, reflecting the artist’s own dilemmas and anxieties related to issues of power in these transactions and her own place among them.
Displayed on the wall, the plates subvert the european tradition of putting oriental ceramic plates in homes, hinting at travel, status, power and taste.
Quintessentially From Where?
2025
Object
Gewürz Curry Ketchup
Give It Back, 2025, exhibition, Decolonia at Kulturbunker, Köln