İnci Eviner: We, Elsewhere

We, Elsewhere, a new work by İnci Eviner will be presented in the Pavilion of Turkey at the 58th Venice Biennale, to be held from May 11 through November 24, 2019. Organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV) and sponsored by Fiat, the Pavilion of Turkey will be curated by Zeynep Öz and located at Sale d’Armi, which is one of the main exhibition venues of the Venice Biennale.

We, Elsewhere is created as a site-specific installation for the Pavilion of Turkey at the 58th Venice Biennale and makes use of elements such as reconfigured objects as well as drawings, video, sound, and performance. It is an investigation into the spaces that we create, and are created for us as a result of collective displacement. The exhibition ruminates on how subjects who find themselves in these spaces react and interact with one another and with their memories. Various elements of sound, reconfigured objects and characters crafted by Eviner evoke the sense of a search for the missing, the erased and that which is elsewhere. A certain aggression and abruptness comes out in the characters’ everyday behaviour informing their identities in transition. The space itself, in which visitors are invited to walk along the ramps, courtyards and edges, displays permeability, allowing views through cuts and cracks along the walls. The paths punctuated by the objects suggest the way in which memory eases conflicts. Together, the characters, the space and the paths tell a story akin to Hannah Arendt’s narrative of struggles in We Refugees.

İnci Eviner received prizes from the Sharjah Art Biennial in 2017 (13 Prize); she was also invited to artist residencies such as Rauschenberg Foundation in Florida, Headlands Center for the Arts in California, SAM Art Projects in Paris and MAC/VAL Paris. She displayed her works in important solo exhibitions such as Beneath the Horizon at Galeri Nev Istanbul (2017), Who’s Inside You? at Istanbul Modern Museum, Turkey (2016); Runaway Girls at The Drawing Center New York, USA (2015); Broken Manifestos at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (2011); Harem at Art in the Auditorium in Whitechapel Gallery London, UK (2009). Eviner also attended a number of biennials worldwide including the Liverpool Biennial (2018), Gwangju Biennial (2018) and 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013). The artist’s works are included in globally important institutional collections such as Deutsche Bank Collection, Center Pompidou in Paris, Istanbul Modern Museum, Guggenheim and TBA21 Wien. Eviner is also a lecturer at Kadir Has University, Faculty of Art and Design. She lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey.

Zeynep Öz is a curator based in Istanbul. She is currently curating the BACA Award exhibition of Marwan Rechmaoui at the Bonnefantenmuseum. She was one of the interlocutors of the Sharjah Biennial 13, curating the biennial’s off-site project in Istanbul in 2017, as well as Co-Curator of the Aichi Triennale 3 in 2016. Öz was the co-founder and director of the Spot Production Fund from 2011 to 2017, during which she curated the Produce series (I, II, III). She also curated the film programme Greatest Common Factor, at SALT, Istanbul (2016), the project Plastic Veins at Home Works VI, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2013), and Selling Snails in the Muslim Neighborhood at the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (2013). Öz has been on the curricular and selection committees of Home Workspace Programme of Ashkal Alwan in Beirut since 2015.

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For media inquiries: 
İKSV Media Relations: media [​at​] iksv.org
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