“Su Is – Water Work” Exhibition at Siemens Sanat, Istanbul

Su Is- Water Works

The research project Su Is – Water works attempts to investigate and engage the Bosphorus in its metaphorical, site-specific, geographical, economic, and historical aspects. How does the Bosphorus operate as actor within contemporary Istanbul […] ?

Since old, the Bosphorus has figured as site, metaphor, and material of Istanbul as city on the border of continents, religions, and languages. For millennia, Istanbul, the old Byzantium and Constantinople, has been the capital of empires, and again today, it finds itself as a major city in one the fastest growing economies in the world. On other level, the water of the Bosphorus also symbolizes to incessant mixing, and sulandirilmis (watering down) of ethnics, political, and religious movements that bridged its flow.

With this exhibition the curators are aiming at building an awareness of cultural differences transforming this into a tool for the artists of the workshop, which was held between students of the Royal Academy of Art- the Hague, Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts and Marmara University Department of Fine Arts, to self-evaluate their own behaviors. Rather than seeing a harmony between two or more cultures, they expect the artists as individuals to observe how they re-form and divide themselves during the transition between the cultures.

Curators and text by: Mürteza Fidan, Vincent W. J. van Gerven Oei, T. Melih Görgün, Gosse de Kort

Artists: Maurice Abath, Melis Bagatir, Manuel Beltran, Aron Birtalan, Serpil Cetinkaya, Merve Denizci, Alican Durbas, Serap Gümüsoglu, Naci Günes Güven, Claudia Hansen, Pim van der Heiden, Roel Heremans, Frederic Janssen, Hacer Kiroglu, Volkan Kiziltunc, Davut Köse, Sterre Konijn, Lucas Kramer, Can Kurucu, Ilgin Özer, Gisella Ripoll, Ronald Schelfhout, Recep Serbest, Daniel Slabovsky, Özer Toraman, Egemen Tuncer

Film by: Feride Akgün

you are maybe interested in the additional talk: Where do public toilets, merchandise boutiques, sharks and city fluidity meet?  by Alexandru Balasescu