Drawing from her experiences growing up in a Kurdish-Alevi family, Cologne-based artist Melike Kara explores themes of displacement, marginalization, exclusion, and state control in her practice – topics many members of her community are painfully familiar with. While seeking to give voice to a people struggling to preserve their own history, her works point to the inherent complications of representing a fragmented population. Kara’s recent large wall collages are comprised of private and found images, treated with bleach to symbolize cultural erasure.

At Art Basel, these collages cover the ground and an ad hoc scaffolding shelter in a branch of Art Basel's Global Lead Partner UBS, around which hang eight new paintings inspired by the ornamental patterns of Kurdish tapestries.