Belonging and Companionship

Talk

May 10, 2019 / 20:15

Belonging and Companionship presents a selection of Aykan Safoğlu’s video and films that he produced between 2013 – 2015. An immigrant himself, Safoğlu traces loss, death, belonging and relationships in his art practice.

The artist’s films pose questions that prompt the audience to think collectively. He deciphers the production and transformation of tools and forms, i.e. language and image, that characterize life and death. Using exposure, light and shutter, Safoğlu’s latest works borrow Barthes’ quotes on life trapped in a moment/image; for us to reflect on “a photograph’s certain and fugitive testimony that eliminates one’s emotional and symbolic sense of time”. Woven into the extending temporality of migration and loss, his archaeological narratives question our relationship with death.

The screening to be held on 10 May will be followed by an artist talk with Aykan Safoğlu, moderated by Bilge Taş. All screenings and events of Belonging and Companionship are free of admissions.

About Aykan Safoğlu
Born in Istanbul and graduated from the Art in Context MA program at Universität der Künste, Berlin. He received his MFA in Photography from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College, NY. In 2013, he received the Grand Prize of the City of Oberhausen at the 59th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Safoğlu was a fine arts fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart in 2018. Safoğlu is currently an artist-in-residence for the January - August term at Kulturakademie Tarabya in Istanbul.

About Bilge Taş 
She worked for several film festivals, including Flying Broom International Women’s Film Festival, Festival on Wheels, Ankara International Film Festival as well as co- founding Pink Life QueerFest. She received an MA in Women and Gender Studies from Ankara University. She is currently writing her PhD thesis on political economy of film festivals in Turkey.

Unhomely!  <br>Lee Miller

Unhomely!
Lee Miller

Pera Museum, in collaboration with Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), is one of the main venues for this year’s 15th Istanbul Biennial from 16 September to 12 November 2017.

Serpent Head

Serpent Head

The Greek god Apollo and his son Asklepios presided over the realm of medicine and healing. Apollo was also the god of light and sun, whose solar symbolism and association with medicine would become linked to Christ the Physician, and the resurrected.

Mersad Berber

Mersad Berber

Mersad Berber was born in Bosanski Petrovac, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, on January 1st. He was the first son of Muhammed Berber and Sadika Berber, a well-known weaver and embroiderer. A year later, the family moved to Banja Luka after the city had suffered damage from the World War II.