“flesh and bone” brings together works that imagine an embodied subjectivity and engage with the body as a becoming that lives, expires, ails, heals, strengthens, withers through various material, historical, social, personal associations and interactions. the exhibition, which features works by alican şahinler, deniz gül, deniz pasha, iris ergül, joachim franz beich, kerem ozan bayraktar, laurie charles, linda dement & nancy mauro-flude, marina papazyan, nilbar güreş, pedro barateiro and şafak çatalbaş, invites the viewer to ponder the body’s powers of becoming, action and exposure, affecting and being affected.

“flesh and bone” started out with discussions and research on artistic productions that address the contemporary forms of perceiving the body, and as the first exhibition of this ongoing process, it aspires to enable new dialogues and encounters through the works it has brought together.

the exhibition points at the historical role the definitions of body and health assume in the construction of social norms and biopolitical domination mechanisms such as colonialism, racism and sexuality. it is interested in the possibilities of espousing the power of feminist critique and philosophy’s forms of understanding the body, and practices of forming solidarity and communities in the context of thinking about the body and vitality today. while looking at the corporeality of life, it highlights the dimensions of bodies that cannot be comprised by physiology. while asking questions that make one consider ecological justice and public space in the context of care relations regarding the existence of the nonhuman, it investigates the possibilities of a wholistic notion of health and healing within practices of living together with earth, soil, vegetation, animal, bacteria, the living and the nonliving. it bids us to think about our relationships of responsibility with that which is not here now; with that which has yet to happen or has long perished, and in the context of these binding relationships about the idea of a justice pertaining to life and living beings.

curated by kevser güler

​