Are you still Alive?

25.03.2017 - 21.04.2017

Palais Dietrichstein, Graz / Österreich (venue)
steirischeKULTURinitiative, Graz / Österreich

The exhibition, an intervention at a public office building in Graz, invites personal voices and artistic responses to the experience of witnessing the unspeakable at a time of silencing. In particular, it reflects individual, political, and artistic struggles within the current political landscape of Turkey.

Provoked by an ostensibly simple question, “What is going on in Turkey?”, the exhibition can be perceived as a geography-specific response, weaved from the subjective positions of the invited participants.... While the country is going through a complex and historically intricate process, its inhabitants’ individual and collective acts today can only strive to contribute to possible futures, and conclusions about the historical facts. What they can show us today are individual efforts for staying safe, yet humane, dignified and gracious.

Berat Isik, Didem Erk, and Zeyno Pekünlü’s work, brought together in this particular context and exhibited at a non-conventional and atypical space for art, a public office for social security, juxtaposes individual positions that evoke hope, sympathy, and grace in the face of systemic atrocities that have replaced reasonable discourse. The title Are You Still Alive? is borrowed from a recent exhibition by Diyarbakir-based artist Berat Isik, which shaped the main framework for this exhibition.


[Quelle. http://www.didemerk.com]