IdentityLab Sessions
It will bring together artists from Türkiye and Sweden. The event, which will focus on the relationship between identity and space and the impact of this relationship on various art practices, will take place on 20-21 May at the Swedish Consulate, DEPO and Galata Greek School.
Participating artists: Fikret Atay, Nancy Atakan, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, Elmas Deniz, Işıl Eğrikavuk, Katarina Pirak Sikku, Liv Strand, Can Sungu, Lisa Torell, and Ferhat Özgür
Curators: Naz Cuguoğlu and Susanne Ewerlöf
Aiming to be a sharing platform on the subject of identity, the IdentityLab team brings together artists and art professionals with different perspectives. It creates a space about personal thoughts on 'space', the relationship of these thoughts with identity and the belonging felt in different places. It also aims to create a discussion about the role of artists in society, who represent different minority groups from Sweden and Turkey and visit unusual venues.
These questions emerged as a result of the IdentityLab team's research travels in Sweden and Turkey over the past six months. The IdentityLab team, which held artistic research-oriented meetings with artists, art professionals and researchers in different places, focused on the impact of the places we live in and/or visit or do not visit on our identity. In this context, IdentityLab covers real and imaginary journeys, visits made together and not together, and travels heard about from others. At the same time, it is about being present both mentally and physically in a place, experiencing the atmosphere of a place, contributing to it, owning it and understanding our function within it as individuals.
The IdentityLab team consists of artists Liv Strand and Can Sungu and curators Naz Cuguoğlu and Susanne Ewerlöf. We see IdentityLab as an experimental platform focused on research and sharing ideas, and so far we have had the opportunity to share these topics with artists from Stockholm, Jokkmokk, Norrköping (Sweden), Istanbul and Batman (Turkey). There were some points we noticed during this process and wanted to share: The way each individual establishes a relationship with space is very different from each other; An individual's relationship with space may change over time; The individual's position in society may have an impact on this issue; The way small towns impact the individual can feel very different from big cities; and belonging is as much about learning the social rules that define that place as it is about knowing the community.
IdentityLab is a Tandem Cultural Managers Exchange Türkiye European Union project. IdentityLab Sessions is implemented within the scope of Swedish Institute funding and in close cooperation with the Swedish Consulate, DEPO and Galata Greek School. The two-day seminar “Exchanging Notes Part I”, which took place in Norrköping, was realized with the support of Iaspis. The team, which carried out research trips and a seminar in Sweden, would like to thank everyone they met along the way.