Banu Cennetoğlu

23 letters made of helium ballons form the phrase of the French psychoanalyst and ethnologist Octave Mannoni »Ich weiss zwar, aber dennoch« (»I know, but nevertheless«). The site-specific intervention from Banu Cennetoğlu marks the discrepancy between the recognition of the existing social circumstances, the urge to change them, and the consequent experience of query and hesitation. The balloons are set up without any support structure. When, over the course of the exhibition, they lose helium, the chain of letters starts to fall apart, denoting the fragile bond between language and reality.

With H O W B E I T Banu Cennetoğlu offers an in-depth look into her digital archive – beginning on June 10th 2006 and lasting until March 21st 2018. In chronological order, the work shows 127 hours, 14 minutes and 44 seconds of unedited footage from the artist’s mobile phones, computers, cameras and external hard drives. This epic project starts with Cennetoğlu’s public circulation of UNITED for Intercultural Action’s List – a growing document that traces information related to the deaths of people, within or on the borders of Europe since 1993 – until the production deadline for the work’s premiere in 2018, which coincided with Nowruz, the Persian new year.