Katharina and Elena are of Russian-German descent. In their artistic and academic work, they explore their families’ history and migration in depth. Together with friends who provided behind-the-scenes support, they launched the Ekho project. Together, they pursued the goal of building a Russian-German community.

The project began in August 2025. The goal was to explore the individual family histories of all participants, including through free workshops in various artistic disciplines.

The Final Exhibition in June 2026

A year spent tracing our roots came to a successful conclusion in June 2026. The project group had previously conducted research together, explored their family histories, and sought their artistic voices in the workshops. The collected results were finally shared with the public in a major final exhibition held from June 11 to 14 at the ROOTS & ROUTES Space. There, the participants gave visual expression to their thoughts on topics such as post-migrant identity, home, and the traces left by past generations through a diverse range of artworks.

For four days, the doors were open to a broad spectrum of photography, painting, games, audio installations, dance, music, literature, and much more. In addition to the exhibited works, the festive opening and closing ceremonies featured exciting performances and speeches on stage. Another highlight of the exhibition days were the screenings of the short documentary “Ja prischlá – Ich bin angekommen” (2024), which were rounded out by a Q&A session with director Lea Hardock.

For further insights into the project’s progress and impressions of the resulting works, it’s still worth checking out the official project Instagram account @projekt.ekho.