Helga Haiman: Notes on Detachment │Photography Exhibition
Helga Haiman’s photography immersive pop-up exhibition
@ Agora 27, a brand new artspace in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Berlin
Location: Schlüterstraße 54, 10629 Berlin
When: 21st of May - 24th of May
The exhibition is realised as a four-day pop-up, accompanied by thematic events:
Thursday, 21 May: Vernissage at 7 pm
Friday, 22 May: Day and Night - Live DJ set (line-up TBC)
Saturday, 23 May: Panel Talk about the Camino
“The things that trouble an adult mean nothing to a child.” (J.M. Barrie in Peter Pan)
Notes on Detachment is an immersive analogue photography exhibition that portrays the phenomenon of disengagement at the threshold of early adulthood. From the perspective of photographer and filmmaker Helga Haiman, the exhibition captures the Camino de Santiago, a centuries-old pilgrimage, a trek of hundreds of kilometres, where the individual, time, and the landscape meet in a peculiar, transitional state. The journey creates a temporary world where everyday structures loosen, and where time occasionally seems to stand still. In this sense, the Camino is not merely a spiritual or religious path, but a kind of contemporary ‘Neverland’: a liminal space where the rules of daily life are temporarily suspended. Simplicity and curiosity are values one forgets to cherish as adults. Haiman invites the viewer to recall an experience where they can purely and lightheartedly be themselves, just as she felt on the El Camino.
Helga Haiman is a London-based photographer and Filmmaker from Budapest, Hungary. She studied Film and Photography across England and Italy. She held her first solo exhibition, ‘I am neither here, nor there’ at Aurora Budapest, 2022, in collaboration with curator Léna Hajdu. In her work, Helga continuously strives for literary expression and the precise depiction of interpersonal emotions. Her pieces are invariably interdisciplinary, weaving narrative threads that form a cohesive unit across multiple media. In her current exhibition, her work takes a new direction as she recounts the most personal experience of her life through the lens of nature: walking 1,100 kilometres across three countries.
The exhibition is complemented by sound. An auditory environment built from natural sounds and layers of electronic music creates an atmospheric space. Notes on Detachment does not merely recount a personal story; rather, the synergy of imagery, sound, and diary fragments builds a space where the viewer may step into Neverland, a realm that allows the uniqueness of the Camino to be felt with total immersion.
Photographer: Helga Haiman
Curator: Lena Hajdu
Exhibition Manager: Deborah Schneidermann
Sound Design: Zoli Molnar and Kristof Novotny
Graphic Design: Juli Horvath
Installers: Liza Kalmar, Joli Toth
CAMINO DE SANTIAGO ON EXPIRED FILM