FULYA CETIN
(b. 1970, Istanbul)
Fulya Cetin is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She moved to Antalya during the pandemic and still continues her artistic practice there. She graduated from Mimar Sinan University Fine Arts Faculty, Department of Painting in 1995. Recently the artist’s “Hair” was included in the collection of Istanbul Modern while her two sketchbooks were acquired for the collection of the British Museum to be exhibited for a year.
The artist does not shy away from confrontation with the realities of life; and begins her work from the power and violence relationships inherent to the mundane. She deep dives into the objects, landscapes, actions and reaches an universal imagery. Her works open a space for encounters prompting the audience to see what lies behind their experiences.
Selected Solo Exhibitions: “The Longer The Closer”, Merdiven Art Space, 2022; "That Melts Into Air", DEPO, 2015; "River Under River" artsümer, 2013; "Good Night", Manzara Perspectives, 2011, “Collector Of Devastations”, 44a, 2010; "Spring Cleaning" (with Nalan Yirtmac), Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları, 2006.
Selected Group Exhibitions: “Artists making books / Poetry to politics" , British Museum, 2022-2023, “Kayıpta Saklı", Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları, 2016, “Stay with Me", Apartman Project, Berlin, 2014; "Güllük Gülistanlık", Opelvillen Rüsselsheim, 2012, "Ateşin Düştüğü Yer", DEPO, 2011; "Pis Hikâye", BM Suma, 2009; "Resmi Para Birimi", Kasa Galeri, 2007; Hafriyat Sergileri.
GUNSELI BAKI
(b. 1976, Istanbul)
Gunseli Baki is a lens-based visual artist, photographer and art manager. She mostly explores themes such as memory/space, city/individual and gender in her artistic practice. On one hand, while investigating body and gender, she attempts to make the traces of past experiences and internalized behaviors in the construction of gender identity visible. On the other hand, her visual and textual productions on memory and space are research-oriented, long-term, archival and transdisciplinary works. She generally uses photography, text, video and collage as her medium. She lives and works in Izmir, continuing her artistic work within Yellow Submarine Art Initiative, of which she is one of the founders.
Solo Exhibition: “Put Something On! - K2 Contemporary Art Center, İzmir, 2020.
Selected Group Exhibitions: “FACTORY I Memory of Space, Space of Memory”, Odeon Pergamon Art & Culture Space, Izmir, 2022; “Time to Speak: Equipping the City with Women's Word and Art”, Istanbul Women's Museum, 2021; “3 Seconds”, Balconnection,Selçuk/İzmir, 2021; “Symptom”, İzole Project, Online Exhibition, 2020; “Calm Times / New Normal”,Yellow Submarine Online Exhibition, 2020; “A Road of One's Own - Psychogeography of a City”, İzmir, 2019; “8th of March Exhibition”, Amed Theatre, Yenişehir, 2019; “Connotations”, Mecra, İstanbul, 2018; “The 5th International Photography Days,” Diyarbakir, 2017; “Documents’15”, halka sanat art center, İstanbul, 2016,
SAFAK SULE KEMANCI
Şafak Şule Kemancı is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in Istanbul. In their recent works, Şafak imagines an erotic queer ecosystem where the boundaries between being plant, mineral, human or animal become fluid. The artist shapes this ecosystem through stretching the potentialities of the material. Belonging neither to a specific time nor a specific place, it invites the audience to travel between the artificial and the natural. This is a place where enthusiasm and exuberance are welcomed, and the movement is never exhausted.
In Şafak’s works, an intense effort makes an appearance right at the point where the consciousness flows and the mind exposes itself to a performative process. Repeating patterns, textures, figures, and pieces are fluently brought together. It is possible to associate this coming together of repetitions with the plants recurrently blooming in the queer ecosystem to which the artist's gaze has been turned for a long time.
Text by Fisun Yalçınkaya
Selected Group Exhibitions: “Reflections from the Women’s Archives”, Depo, İstanbul, 2022; “All the birds would come to my garden”, Depo, İstanbul, 2021;
SINIR/SIZ ALAN, Kiraathane Istanbul Literature House, Istanbul, 2019; Artweeks Akaretler, artSümer, İstanbul, 2019; “Artists Pick Artists”, Art Sümer, Istanbul, 2016; Dream Pavillion, Tuyap Art Fair, Istanbul, 2016; “Timeline”, Blok Art Space, Istanbul, 2015; Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, Represented by Halka Sanat/Gallery, Istanbul, 2015.
SENA
(b. 1982, Istanbul)
SENA graduated from University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins, BA Graphic Arts and Design Department in 2006. She worked on socially responsible art projects and exhibited her work in various areas of England and Istanbul. She was one of the two creators of “Tershane'' project that started in 2006.
She has participated in various exhibitions, social responsibility projects, and fairs in Istanbul, Ankara, London, New York, Basel and Vienna since 2008. Her seventh solo exhibition, '7 DIP' curated by Beral Madra took place in Dolapdere Evliyagil, Istanbul. She took part as an artist in the 'Women and Sustainability' project supported by the Swiss Embassy and curated by Carole Kambil and Burçak Yakıcı. The artist works in her atelier she named 'INAT' in Istanbul Büyükderei and also in her workshop in Mugla.
Selected Solo Exhibitions: “7 DIP”, Evliyagil Museum, Istanbul, 2019; “2” (2009), “3 Angle” (2010) and “Fantastic 4” (2011), x-ist; Istanbul, 2009, 2010, 2011;
Selected Group Exhibitions & Fairs: “Womanhood and Sustainability “, Cer Modern, Ankara & Barın Han , İstanbul, 2022; “Artweek Akaretler”, Büro Sarıgedik , İstanbul, 2019; Ormanda Yürüyenler: Sanatçı/Hikaye Anlatıcısı”, (Walkers In The Forests: Stroy Tellers); Hallarts Gallery, Istanbul, 2019; “Bir kelime, bin mesele”, (One Word, Thousand Matters), Galeri BU, Istanbul, 2018; “Decadence”, DAS art project, Pera Palas, İstanbul, 2017.
MONICA PAPI
(b. 1984, Izmir)
Monica Papi is a Turkey born poet and editor. She studied sociology, history and philosophy. Since 2004, her poems and articles have been published in various Turkish literary and poetry magazines. In 2015, she received the award at the Arkadaş Z. Özger Poetry Award and her poetry book “Râz” was published. Between 2014-2019, she published the Şerhh – Poetry and Criticism Journal, with a team of poets, writers and academicians. In 2019, she wrote the script of Özgür Demirci’s video project named “The Things I Want to Tell You” (2020, Two-channel video installation, 22’40). In 2020, she founded UR Collective which is a non-profit art and culture organization based in İzmir-Urla. UR Collective is an interdisciplinary platform that will conduct its work in collaborations and aim to develop projects focusing on visual arts, literature, architecture, history, memory and cultural studies. Currently, she is working on her second poetry book.
Selected Screenings: “Book of Responses”, Izmir, 2021; “(Leaving) The House Where We Grep Up”, Monitor Izmir, Izmir, 2022.
SEZGI ABALI
(d. 1979, Mersin)
Sezgi Abalı holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Arts Management with a concentration on the biennials as an exhibition form. After lecturing at Yeditepe University Faculty of Fine Arts for ten years; she has been one of the co-initiators of halka art project, an independent art initiative and international artist residency which hosted local and international art projects, exhibitions, talks, workshops and meetings in Istanbul and abroad.
She pursues her practice through research, archiving, story telling, photography and installation mostly on the subjects like cultural heritage, personal histories, nature, birth, death, memory and so on. Lives and works between Urla and Istanbul.
Selected Group Exhibitions: “A Room of Our Own”, ARK Kültür, 2017; “Past, in Each of Its Moments, be Citable, On Walter Benjamin's Concept of History in the City of Istanbul”, Group Exhibition, DEPO, 2016; “I beg your pardon I didn't recognise you, I've changed a lot”, halka art project, 2013; “Unfair Provocation”, Hafriyat, 2009.
YEKATERYNA GRIGORENKO
(b. 1996, Mersin)
Yekateryna Grigorenko graduated from Dokuz Eylül University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting Department in 2019. She continues her master's degree at the same university.
Turkey-born Ukrainian artist describes her art practice as follows: “I live in Turkey, and I am originally from Ukraine. It has given me two cultures and two identities, but also removing the body from both cultures, has caused me to question my identity. Many discourses such as how to be a woman, how to be a man, what is beautiful, what is ugly, what is true, what is wrong, or according to whom it is true or wrong for whom have been ringing in my ears since my birth. These discourses, which do not have the quality of real knowledge, but are mainstream, establish the symbolic order, that is, the order we are in now. In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche makes a statement that supports this situation; He says, "Since some moral forms require a subject, they constitute the subject as a result of this necessity." What Nietzsche said is how much your identity is. It shows that it is on a slippery surface and clearly shows the border between us and the animal. The animal is taboo and naked. My productions contain the emotions and feelings of the real world rather than being on this slippery ground. I am moving forward with my admiration for the life of the taboo-free animal. Not with beautiful, taught truths; I aim to bring the aesthetics of the ugly, wrong and disgusting to the audience. By rejecting the reality we are in, I seek a new reality within the framework of beauty at the point of exhaustion. My perversions, desires and instincts are reflected in my productions by moving away from reality and I embrace art with all my nakedness like an animal. By focusing on the materiality of the body, I present the states of death, birth, pain, lust, disgust and desire directly to the viewer. The practice of sewing embroidery, which is also seen in most of my works, touches on the sanctity of women, mother, birth and reproduction, and I give birth like an animal every time with my productions and I set up my own game in it.”
Selected Solo Exhibitions: “Before the common era”, CAI Project Artist Residence, Spain, Cadiz, 2022; “Biricik Tekil Şahıs”, (My Sweet First Person Singular), The Wall Art, İstanbul, 2022.
Selected Group Exhibitions: “ONE”, Akaretler, İstanbul, 2021; “Finding Cure in Istanbul”, Karşı Sanat, Istanbul, 2022; “Out of Time”, Artsürem, Dokumapark Modern Art Gallery, Antalya, 2021; ‘Mixer Sessions 4’, Mixerart, Istanbul, 2019; Daragac, Izmir, 2019, 2021, 2022.