Wie lange dauert die Vergangenheit?

Maria Koch and Helga Elsner Torres offer visitors an encounter that expresses a shared quest for belonging, origins, and a sense of inner place. Through images, films, and an evolving archive, the two artists explorethemes inspired by their perspectives and life stories. Galerie Bernau, with its history as a site of transition and change, provides the setting for this dialogue about personal and historical ruptures intended to connect rather than divide. Both artists were born in the late 1980s. At first glance, their backgrounds appear to have little in common: One grew up in a family of German descent in Peru, while the other came of age in East Germany during the period of reunification. Yet, their paths converge in an artistic exploration of memory, transformation, and identity. Moments of profound change are rarely clean breaks. They unfold over time, leaving lasting echoes. They transform us – sometimes subtly, sometimes with great force. Maria Koch's artistic works, on display in the front gallery space, engage precisely with these moments – the points where life paths shift and new spaces emerge. Her work is created through a transmedial approach spanning painting, photography, and installation and focuses on topics often overlooked or suppressed during times of societal upheaval. It explores universal experiences of new beginnings, longing, loss, and belonging. Drawing on her own background, Koch creates works that weave together personal and collective memories. She focuses on the process itself, the internal struggle, and what can arise from change: new perspectives, a sense of connection, and the possibility of recognising oneself in the other. Through her art, Koch invites viewers to embrace vulnerability as a starting point for connection and discover new forms of freedom, hope, and belonging in the spaces in between. In her work, Helga Elsner Torres explores biographical fractures, family secrets, and colonial entanglements between Germany and Peru. Her installations combine painting and drawing, archival material, and video, creating an interplay of memory and loss, absence and reconstruction. The short film _What Remains When the Wave Recedes_ (Was bleibt, wenn die Welle geht) is being shown for the first time in the rear gallery space. This video work handles themes of migration, memory, and the sense of belonging. Elsner Torres uses surfing as a metaphor for confronting uncontrollable external forces – maintaining balance amidst change and rising again after a fall. The film was created in two locations that shape the artist's life: by the sea in Lima, her hometown, and on the Mechesee lake in Bernau near Berlin, her home of choice, where she navigates the lake's still surface on a standup paddling board. Both locations reflect the internal dynamics of arriving and letting go as well as the question of what remains when everything changes. In the participatory element, we invite visitors – regardless of age, language, background, or physical ability – to contribute their own experiences of shifts or ruptures, whether biographical, linguistic, or social. These contributions are incorporated into the exhibition – either anonymously or attributed – forming a growing, collective archive of personal transformation. "How long does the past last?" encourages visitors to engage with their own memories. Perhaps these memories will help them discover that new forms of freedom, closeness, and belonging can emerge precisely atthe spaces in between.