The 60th Venice Biennale, Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, presents a remarkable repertoire of works by 331 artists and collectives, coupled with 87 national participations, on view between April 20 and November 24, 2024.
Emphasizing the plurality and fluidity of the people by employing central themes such as diaspora and cultural coexistence while associating the outsider, the queer, and the indigenous, the exhibition spread across the Giardini and Arsenale highlights artistic production spanning over a century imbued with “multifarious crises” that still continue to unfold in our day.
In that context, two seminal works titled Topak Ev (1973) and Exile is a hard job (1977-2024) by the self-taught artist Nil Yalter, who moved to France in 1965 herself and is considered among the pioneers of feminist and video art, are placed emblematically at the very entrance of the main pavilion in Giardini. Both works, supported by SAHA in their production for the biennale, respectively address the stereotypical gender roles and portray the experiences of the migrant and the exiled. Praised for the outstanding merit and enduring impact of her work, Yalter was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement by the Venice Biennale, along with Brazilian artist Anna Maria Maiolino who received their awards during the opening ceremony on 20 April.
Participating for the first time at the Venice Biennale, Güneş Terkol created two new works titled A Song to the World (2024) with SAHA’s support and in collaboration with the women and immigrant collectives based in Venice that entailed a process of storytelling workshops and collective production. Terkol’s textile works, which she carried into the Arsenale space with a performance on April 17, employ stitching or drawing directly onto cloth to create characters existing in an ambiguous state, whose voices are amplified to encourage viewers to lend an ear to the stories told.
Acclaimed for her unreserved and engaging oeuvre for over 40 years that has long been examining the complexities of migration and globalization, artist Gülsün Karamustafa represents the Türkiye Pavilion, where SAHA is one of the 21 permanent venue supporters. Set against the historical backdrop of the Arsenale’s Sale d’Armi, Karamustafa’s new installation work Hallow and Broken: A State of the World (2024) conceived for the Türkiye Pavilion with SAHA’s support along with its eponymous publication, comprises an interconnection of sculptural works from found materials, locally produced Murano glass pieces to a video collage that invite viewers to reflect on the current state of the world and our tumultuous realities that threaten us all.
Another project support by SAHA this year in Venice involved the Luxembourg Pavilion, which aims to challenge the entrenched notion of individual artistic authorship by presenting a collection of works where artists relinquish ego in favor of a profound exploration of collective creativity through the medium of sound. Commissioned by the pavilion as per the curation of Joel Valabrega, the collective project titled A Compreative Dialogue Act featured an artist from Türkiye, namely the performance artist Selin Davasse, who repurposes literary and performative techniques. As part of the project in the pavilion in Arsenale, where performances will be layered upon one another, Davasse presented a work titled Biting (2024) throughout the opening week of the biennale, embodying various feminine beasts with distinct syntactical, vocal, and gestural characteristics.
Since 2011, SAHA conceives grant schemes geared towards international non-profit art institutions, such as museums, biennials, and art institutes, etc. that can submit applications to SAHA for the funding of exhibitions and projects of artists and curators from Turkey.
For further inquiries and applications: application [at] saha.org.tr
