HFBK

An exhibition by students of the HFBK Hamburg as part of Triennale Expanded at the 9th Hamburg Photography Triennial 2026

In the exhibition It’s Never Love, It’s Always Work, the photography class at HFBK Hamburg asks what separates love from labor in the midst of ongoing social and economic conflict. How are acts of care, support, and closeness integral to the work we do for others, often without naming it as such? And what does this mean for the way we live and work together: for intimacy, relationships, and migration?

Across different media, including photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation, the participants explore how images and objects can carry narratives at the intersection of the personal and the political. The stories that emerge form a constellation, held in tension by the motifs of labor and love. They tell of care as something that appears not only within the working day, but also in the relationships, dependencies, and gestures that shape our lives.

Set in Hamburg, a port city shaped by histories of labor struggle, migration, trade, and colonialism, the exhibition links human relationships to economic and social life. Accompanied by a program of talks with invited speakers, It’s Never Love, It’s Always Work becomes a platform for dialogue: an open space for the forms of labor that bind us to one another.

Collectively developed by the participants, supervised by Özlem Altın.

Supporting Program:

• 06. Juni, 15 Uhr Between Love, Work and Migration, Führung (auf Deutsch) / Guided Tour (in German) 

• June 6, 4–5 p.m., trans*port, Live Interview with Harry Hachmeister

• 06. Juni, 17 Uhr, Between Love, Work and Migration, Führung (auf Englisch) / Guided Tour (in English) 

• June 12, 6–7 p.m., One shot on Love, Work and Migration, Artist Conversation with Tobias Zielony, Enis Maci & artists featured in the exhibition

HFBK boutique, Mönckebergstr. 1 & Satellit Pop-Up-Space Mönckebergstr. 3

It’s Never Love, It’s Always Work—Part II opens in HFBK boutique on June 18, 6pm.

More info