She whispers a secret into an elder tree...

A lovelock key flies over the railing and disappears
Softly into the waters to which it now belongs.
The key will do its part and it won't rust...

A black bird lands onto the statue of a lion roaring evil out.
It stands on top of the lion's head just as still, and just as ready.

I walk through the Hamburg city park and notice glimpses of innocence, a willingness to let in a little bit of magic, to live a little and decenter ourselves.

I recall fluttering ribbons, shooting stars and coins tossed in fountains.

I think of one particular fountain that legend has it rejected a particular coin toss. Its water stopped flowing, and its basin ran dry. It came to be believed that the coin carried a heartless wish. Even the most skeptic of skeptics agreed to smile affectionately at, and to sometimes even share, the story.

I take a picture of the two crawling figures and remember those animal faces carved onto building facades and city gates to call onto their spirits and fierceness.

I fall in love with this place, so tentatively real. And it is when I reach the planetarium that I realize what it is about this place that brings those images and memories to mind. What weaves them through my walk in the park is the innocence that they too betray. They share an appeal to nature and other beings in which not only do we express a desire to animate the inanimate, to commune with it, but also a longing to secretly move closer to nature, to get intimate with it or with its essence – even if we've learned not to believe in one.

We play. And we actively listen. Perhaps.

... And let sweet summer nights hide in our Hamburg sun.


Voice: Simon Kluth, Shahira Issa
Recording: Lukas Schupp
Editing: Shahira Issa
Editing Assistance: Lukas Schupp
Studio: Hfbk Hamburg
Mastering: Felix Raeithel
Engineering & Installation: Neue Farben GbR Paul Geisler + Fabian Nitschkowski

Special Thanks:
Hisham Issa 
Agnieszka Polska
Ahmed Zaazaa
André Vida
Yara Goubran
Omer Fast
Simon Zastrow
Diana Tørsløv Møller
HfbK, Hamburg
Brian Kuan Wood
Ximena Rodriguez
Nida Ghouse
Elsa de Seynes


Shahira Issa is an artist and filmmaker living between Hamburg and Berlin.

Location of the work on Google Maps