Two systems of love meet in a shared space.
For one summer, they open a temporary office together: Schatz GmbH—a matchmaking company founded by CEOs Djoana Weimann and Josie Overton. With breakup insurance, terms & conditions, and handwritten questionnaires, matches are made by hand. No profiles, no swiping—just a file folder. And if you’re matched: a single SMS.
Love Game—a performative installation by Hülya Braasch—enters a new chapter with this iteration: The tennis match becomes an office game. But the question remains: Who wins when nothing comes back? A game where the winner is the one whose opponent didn’t score a single point.
The translation of the title I’d still hug you even if you were a cactus and I were a balloon opens a new page in the Love Game—recalling both a sentimental postcard and the project’s original imagery:
Familiar motifs return in new form. The green of the grass becomes a cactus. The red of the tennis balls floats through the room as heart-shaped balloons. The white daisy remains—delicate, stubborn, unwavering. A symbol of hope caught between two unequal players. As in every relationship, as in every Love Game. Movement is programmed. Emotion is unpredictable. The room itself becomes a stage for the choreography of trying again and again: Love equals zero. And still—we keep playing.
From July 24 to September 7, 2025, the pop-up glass office will inhabit the exhibition space of the HFBK boutique on Hamburg’s Mönckebergstraße.
It opens its doors only twice—for the vernissage and finissage—offering visitors a glimpse into the company’s inner workings by inviting guests to step inside and discover something for themselves.
Whether it’s love, or something entirely unexpected.
On all other days, the door remains closed. What happens inside—and what has already happened—can only be glimpsed from the outside. Only traces remain: Lip prints that trail through the room. Matches buried or revealed in stacks of paper. Air suspended between flirtation and frustration. An office that keeps telling stories, even after closing time.
The collaboration between Schatz GmbH and Love Game creates a space where love, longing, and intimacy are turned into both commodity and archive—through exaggerated imagery and systematic data collection. A study emerges, making one thing clear: This isn’t just about personal fears of commitment or individual relationship issues.
Rather, it’s about asking how intimacy is negotiated when love is forced to follow economic logic. What happens to closeness and desire when self-performance in online dating, and social media algorithms, increasingly shape our connections? When relationships function as investments—or games?
How can we create spaces to renegotiate what connection means—beyond optimization, comparison, and commodification?
