IMAGINARY EXHIBITION
The current authoritarian tendencies that are observable in many parts of the globe have brought severe obstacles to freedom of speech and expression. Journalists, academicians, and artists are facing active hostility from their governments and conservative-nationalist formations. Imaginary Exhibition is an attempt to look closer to the case of Turkey to monitor the complications of exhibiting politically sensitive artworks. In a joint conversation, Banu Cennetoğlu and Zehra Doğan will share their experiences of obstructions they faced while exhibiting their artworks, and they will explain the ways in which they contested those limitations.
The Young Curators Academy Sundowners are public talks that discuss alternative practices of activating communities.
Banu Cennetoğlu lives and works in Istanbul. Her work, that explores the political, social and cultural dimension of the production, representation and distribution of knowledge has been the subject of solo exhibitions, a.o. Kunstsammlung NRW K21 (2019) and Sculpture Center (2019) . Her work has been shown internationally a.o. at Gwanju Biennale (2014), documenta 14 (2017).
Zehra Doğan is a Kurdish artist and journalist. She is a founder and the editor of Jinha, a feminist Kurdish news agency that was shut down in October 2016 by Turkish authorities. In 2017, she was sentenced to 2 years, 9 months and 22 days in prison for »terrorist propaganda« because of her news coverage, social media posts, and sharing a painting of hers that depicts the destruction of the town Nusaybin, in southeastern Turkey. In prison, she and other women created the newspaper Özgür Gündem Zindan (Free Agenda Dungeon). She was released from prison in February 2019.