"A Crack We Sprout Through", a group show consisting of works by Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu, Ndaye Kouagou, and Elif Saydam, curated by Melih Aydemir. The exhibition will run between June 7 - July 27, 2024. it focuses on co-opting and appropriation mechanisms within oppressive structures, aiming to reclaim the true intentions behind hollowed-out terms that have come to define practices of struggle.
The title "A Crack We Sprout Through" directly references "They tried to bury us, they didn't know we were seeds"; a widely used phrase in various protests and demonstrations across the globe, originating from a poem by Dinos Christianopoulos. This exhibition gathers attempts to cut through Western-defined values that are aggressively disseminated, disregarding and sidelining othered solidarity practices. it challenges concepts of visibility and coming out, which have become solid descriptions of the path to liberation.
"A Crack We Sprout Through" features several disruptive subheadings that encompass artists' works focusing on concepts like identity politics, safe spaces, reappropriation, and camp. With a public programming took place in June 2024 (Pride month in Turkey), these concepts was challenged with localized perspectives.
An attempt to start a conversation: Do you feel safe?
Comfort comes with its structured shape; it represents a world of norms, a world aligned with normative values. A comfort zone remains a relentless aspiration for many of us, dwelling in a world sculptured by values that seamlessly accommodate certain groups. Sara Ahmed argues that normativity is comfortable for those who can inhabit it and mentions how comfort is experienced not merely as emotional, but as the social-spatial fit between body and object.[1] Thinking about the spatial aspect of this notion, entering this gallery is not a comforting experience for a lot of visitors - it is square, white, and feels cold. I’ve seen comments from visitors describing it as similar to a hospital; probably, the connotations of the word “sanatorium” also contribute to this sentiment. Yet, when I contemplate a sanitized environment, it revokes notions of comfort tailored for the masses. Comfort arrives effortlessly, enabling us to immerse ourselves in a space devoid of external thoughts and distractions. A gallery space stretches beyond its physical limits, with its conceptual dimension often regarded as challenging and somewhat inaccessible.
What does it mean to bring a corner of comfort into a gallery space? Through his installation, Ndayé Kouagou challenges the concept of comfort and directs us to question the notion of safe spaces and their possibility. The corner wall installation, printed on aluminum with a slight reflection, asks: ‘‘Where can I feel comfortable in this changing world?’’. This changing world raises the issue of an increasingly hostile environment that many of us are forced to navigate, some of us more drastically impacted than others. An accompanying video titled ‘‘Will you feel comfortable in my corner?’’, provokes a conversation that lingers with unease and ambiguity about the source of our discomfort. Comfort and corners – concepts seemingly at odds – highlight spaces of otherness and are useless in the spatial sense. Kouagou stands at the crossroads of discomfort and comfort, challenging the universality of these notions.
The phrase "Sorry for putting you in this situation," atop the aluminum installation, underscores the difficulty of achieving comfort in every encounter. The accompanying video adopts a generous tone about sharing one’s comfort with others, thus highlighting the inherent discomfort. This discomfort is recognized by those who sense the absence of safety and understand when certain spaces do not guarantee their protection. The question of safety in a given space raises issues about who provides it and how it is ensured. In light of the overuse of the term ‘‘safe space’’, we must question its definition in our current socio-political climate. Does it simply refer to a list of rules protecting ‘vulnerable’ groups? How do we liberate ourselves when manufactured safety reduces individual resilience to vulnerability, or when celebrated resilience becomes a confining label that traps individuals in their circumstances?
Initially presented as an exhibition featuring performances and workshops, this installation is rooted in provoking questions about comfort. Kouagou aimed to tackle the concept of otherness through the conversations that emerged within these encounters. The video standing in for the artist’s physical presence, features an indefinable voice that speaks directly to the visitor. The discomfort evoked by this dialogue urges viewers to confront their own experiences of comfort and discomfort. This confrontation compels us to question the very essence of these states, reflecting on our personal notions of comfort and the societal norms that shape them.
1- Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2004
Diasporas and Reappropriating the Camp of the ‘Orient’
A question of self orientalism of the queer
Hospitality exists within a framework that also welcomes hostility. What we are hospitable to is drawn with existential and visible boundaries. Within the diasporic context, the notions of heritage and hospitality pose a complex conundrum, intertwined with the specter of nationalism. While heritage seems distant from cultural identity, diaspora operates as an enigmatic satellite orbiting an 'authentic' cultural nucleus, ensconced within rigid norms and codes. The discussion of authenticity comes with its dangerous potential: Is using oriental values an idealization of the terms they came to represent? The outsider or insider perspective of the diasporic experience is questioned in terms of how it can claim values or struggles without having the same experience. Diasporic positions face hostility from both sides: ‘host’ versus ‘home’ countries.
A queer person with a diasporic experience develops a self-surveillance method influenced by both the host country's gaze and the internalized phobias derived from culturally inherited codes. Questioning assigned gender and cultural identities can be seen as an attempt to block this gaze toward the self and challenge the authenticity of these notions. Elif Saydam’s self-orientalism comes into play here; appropriation allows them to resurface queer possibilities within disregarded values. They focus on ornaments by working both with and against traditions. The curtain dividing the gallery space showcases Saydam’s witty understanding of these motives not only visually, but also through the use of literature that would now be considered camp. The curtain welcomes visitors with words from Rumi, ‘‘Come, come, whoever you are’’ mixed with a playful recreation of the same quote: ‘‘Leave, leave, whoever you are’’ depicting the questionable authenticity of hospitality within both the cultural milieu and physical space. It also addresses the coexistence of hostility and hospitality concerning the discomfort faced by queer individuals. These words are placed on a photograph showcasing a messy table, with tulips and a few items almost documenting the current stream of struggles we face on a daily basis.
Appropriation as a tool to reemerge buried approaches within the self appears in different ways in Saydam’s works. The use of security mirrors in their current works emphasizes the growing surveillance practices. Inspired by the similar convex mirrors in Spätis across Berlin, the work in the exhibition points out the internalized surveillance practices we inherit either through our cultural codes or due to the prevalence of oppressive states’ use of it. Run mostly by immigrants from Turkey, these nighttime shops offer a shortcut away from the West’s organized hostility and manufactured safety. The convex mirror in these shops stands almost as a decoration in the corner, sometimes surrounded by several stickers. Saydam uses a similar mirror and adorns it with delicate latticework, reminiscent of a pattern that might be traced back to Moorish architecture, considering the cross-cultural share of motives and how they remain although the context of how they are used is changed. The functionality of the mirror is corrupted through this action; the reflection of the self is meshed with an oriental pattern. Saydam uses decorative aesthetics as a destructive tool, focusing on its transgression potential to disrupt the ideologies ingrained in our perception of value. The Global North's assessment of aesthetics often serves as a reminder of its inherent hostility towards immigrant communities, reflecting deep-seated issues of racism and assimilation policies, which manifest in the erasure or misrepresentation of certain aesthetics. These motives are also called feminine, which is used as a degrading term to point out the queerness they encapsulate. Not only within diasporas but also through our internalized disapproval of these aesthetics, Saydam is motivated to reappropriate them by rejecting any notion of authenticity.
Surveillance has long been hostile to POCs, queer, and trans identities, seeking to control deviation with its racialized binary optics. Residing in Berlin, Saydam’s use of security mirrors also reminds us of the current German politics and the state’s use of surveillance tools, especially when it comes to the Palestinian struggle. In Germany, art workers find themselves under a scrutinizing gaze of control, as institutions spy on the signatures in solidarity campaigns with Palestine to hinder signees’ access to European funds. The racialized and ethnicized lens of this scrutiny becomes increasingly apparent with the state’s censorship attempts. The West demands a conditional understanding of solidarity, effectively trying to erase the interconnection of radicalized groups. Saydam presents a reflection at the intersection of all these events; their reappropriation method scratches the surface of norms to uncover cracks for collective germination.
Restructuring the Identity Politics and Mourning
The cemetery for the Kimsesiz [Those Who Have No One] within the Cemetery of Kilyos, Istanbul, stands as a testament to the forgotten aspects of mourning and the exposure of marginalization in life that becomes crystallized after death. This cemetery cradles the unclaimed and nameless dead: the homeless, the victims of honor crimes and femicides, the disowned, premature babies, unaccompanied refugees, queer and especially trans people, and Kurdish political detainees who vanished due to state violence. Here, they bury people whose bodies are left unclaimed, not returned to their kin by the state, or unable to be repatriated due to war or intersecting difficulties. Each grave, marked only by a number, starkly symbolizes the politics of abandonment by the state and society. The state's role here acts like a necropolitical force, depending on the relationship between the deceased and their family, community, or political status or class. [1] The cemetery workers call this place Havuz [the Pool], a place where all the differences, singularities, and lives are erased, and bodies are laid to ‘‘sleep”, sometimes even two bodies are buried on top of each other in a single grave with a concrete partition between them. Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu's film Havuz [the Pool] conveys structures that erase lives and all distinctions, and the homages made with stones and flowers by possible loved ones or volunteers as the concrete borders between the graves blur. In the case of trans deaths, even when the community wants to claim their friend's body, permission is denied by the biological family, resulting in the body being buried in this cemetery. Accompanying two-channel video installation an impossible ritual focuses on the agonizing impossibility of completing a mourning ritual in this cemetery, where those at rest are reduced to numbers. The graves only mark that the person has passed through this world, their differences stripped away - identities forgotten. This is a forsaken area at the top of the Kilyos cemetery, nestled among greenery, trees, and birds, surrounded by family plots. Leman, along with their comrades Kübra Uzun and Onur Tayranoğlu, and the entire production team, visits this forsaken place, bearing witness to the existence of the departed and the dehumanizing practices inflicted upon them with the intention to carry an impossible ritual to grieve. This work becomes a vessel, unveiling the pervasive erasure practices that haunt the lives and deaths of marginalized groups.
Leman’s installation confronts the crude impossibility of honoring those buried under the shadow of political erasure, highlighting how death itself becomes a tool wielded by those in power. Following their ongoing research on necropolitics and the enforced attachment of marginalized communities to this grim reality, Leman presents a reimagined inclusive rainbow flag. “No more colors” critically examines the positioning of current queer politics defined by Western standards, and exposes how ‘queer safety’ has been co-opted into a tool for state manipulation. Leman questions the rainbow flag, a global symbol appropriated by hegemonic power, revealing how it functions as a polarizing object. This boundary object plays a central role in defining the construction of Europeanness coded as progressive and differentiates it from the others. [2] While the flag’s colors, rooted in the universal acceptance of love in all forms, are intended to symbolize unity, they have been weaponized to justify destruction and polarize society. Leman replaces the flag’s vibrant hues with soil, urging us to remember its historical necropolitics and to reconsider its contemporary interpretation. The connection between death and queerness, particularly for trans lives, is a direct consequence of a necropolitical order that views these lives as disposable as a strategy of social subjugation and institutional maintenance. [3] This disposability aims to reinforce social binaries and heteronormativity by punishing deviations through exclusion and violence.
When death is wielded as a tool of power to erase, mourning becomes an impossible duty. The perpetual flow of images of pain and death are stripped of their realities, transforming into ignorable cruelties for some and causing numbing distress for others. The destruction and genocides from Gaza to Sudan, spanning across the globe, compel us to question our passive observation and to recognize that witnessing must become an act of participation in opposing the perpetrators. No more colors emerged as a reaction after months of confronting geopolitical “casualties” and harsh news from marginalized communities in Turkey - suicides, and deaths due to healthcare inaccessibility, a direct result of abandonment politics. Leman’s film Havuz [the Pool] stands as a reminder of systemic violence that continues to marginalize even in death and seeks to create possibilities of resistance through the act of memorialization.
1- Aslı Zengin, The Cemetery for the Kimsesiz Unclaimed and Anonymous Death in Turkey, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 42(1): 163-181, 2022
2 - Pia Laskar, Anna Johansson, Diana Mulinari, Decolonising the Rainbow Flag, 2017
3 - Queer Necropolitics, edited by Jin Haritaworn, Adi Kuntsman, Silvia Posocco, 2019