Narrative Power Alliance: Exhibition
Opening Reception: Thursday, January 9, 2025 – 6:00–9:00 PM
Exhibition Dates: January 9, 2025 – February 9, 2025
Venue: Barın Han, Istanbul
Boyacı Ahmet St. No:4, 34122 Fatih/Istanbul
Artists: Trans Memory Collective, Fatma Belkıs, Gregg Bordowitz, Nejbir Erkol, Kiki ggNash, Marina Papazyan, Zeyno Pekünlü, Belit Sağ, Jilet Sebahat, Üzüm Derin Solak, Serdar Soydan, Furkan Öztekin (with Ceyhan Fırat), Cansu Yıldıran
The Alliance of Narrative Power: Research Association for Democracy, Peace and Alternative Politics (DEMOS), Havle Women’s Association, Political Well-Being Platform, Positive Solidarity, KuirGaming, Social Policy, Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Studies Association (SPoD), Van Star Women Association
Curators: Onur Karaoğlu & Alper Turan
Project Coordinator: Berfin Atlı (SPoD)
Initiated as a collective process by the Narrative Power Alliance—an assembly of diverse advocacy groups, platforms, and associations operating across Turkey—this exhibition arises from a shared mission: to understand, analyze, and seek new ways of contending with the rising anti-gender movements in the country. Drawing from the ongoing efforts of these organizations, the exhibition features new productions by Belit Sağ, Cansu Yıldıran, Fatma Belkıs, Furkan Öztekin (with Ceyhan Fırat), Kiki ggNash, Nejbir Erkol, Üzüm Derin Solak, and Zeyno Pekünlü, all aiming to unpack oppressive and homogenizing rhetoric. Through various media—painting, photography, video, publications, and installations—the artists explore the spaces between text, image, and body, reimagining the possibilities of collective subjectivity. In doing so, they construct alternative, liberating narratives and contribute to forming a counter-public.
The exhibition also includes new texts by Marina Papazyan and Jilet Sebahat, archival research materials by Serdar Soydan and Trans Memory Collective, and an existing work by Gregg Bordowitz. Curated by Onur Karaoğlu and Alper Turan, and coordinated by Berfin Atlı, the exhibition opens on January 9 and can be visited at Barın Han in Istanbul until February 9.
Under the weight of state and societal antagonism, public space collapses into a flattened terrain—pressing queer, trans, and feminist bodies out. Conceptually, the exhibition is situated along a tense line between forms of “oppression” (baskı in Turkish, also meaning “print/press”) and printed and pressed materials. The exhibition turns to the very act of pressing and embodying this pressure—a method of inscription and a violent compression of suppressed voices and embodiments subjugated to the surface. The works in this show channel their energy into printed, imprinted, pressing, and pressured matter. On flat surfaces -screens, paper, photographs, canvas, and walls- they carve out layered topographies that resist one-dimensional narratives, reasserting depth through narrative power. Every work in the exhibition acts as a body in a public space, coming together side by side for collective action.
Reading Differently, Writing Differently
Zeyno Pekünlü, Nejbir Erkol, Fatma Belkıs, and Gregg Bordowitz explore where and how out-of-margin narratives can be read and written, and how one can attain the poetics of error, malfunction, trivial, and what lingers at the edge of a page. Zeyno Pekünlü examines the reflections of collective emotions, strategy discussions, and highlighted points in the doodles collected from the Alliance’s meeting notes. Nejbir Erkol spreads the word “malfunction” (arıza) across the space to expose the tension between malfunction and consent (rıza). Fatma Belkıs retreats into the assumedly unread format of a brochure to write a woman’s self-defense story. Gregg Bordowitz brings the ongoing urgency of the AIDS crisis to the surface with a grammatically incorrect banner.
Images of We Were Here, We Are Here, We Will Be Here
At the core of this exhibition is a desire to visualize, document, and embody our existence while in defiance of censorship and erasure. Cansu Yıldıran, Belit Sağ, and Üzüm Derin Solak reimagine how we see and are seen, and how much we can show, through feminist, trans, Muslim, and Kurdish experiences. In her fragmented portraits created in collaboration with members of the Havle Women’s Association, Cansu Yıldıran discusses the ethics of the visibility of feminist Muslim bodies. With the films she produced with Ruken Ay from the Van Star Women Association and artist Sevil Tunaboylu, Belit Sağ focuses on the image politics of censorship. Üzüm Derin Solak investigates the possibilities of capturing an iconic photo in Istanbul’s public space that is simultaneously both women+ and queer following the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention.
Archives of the Selves
By painting different versions of herselves, Kiki ggNash creates a self-appointed “family” portrait, embedding inaccessible past versions into visual memory through portraits on burned surfaces. In his installation, Furkan Öztekin revisits the ongoing collaboration with the late Ceyhan Fırat and earlier works derived from Fırat’s archive and corpus, thereby questioning the fluidity and reliability of these narrative constructions. Through archival archeology, Serdar Soydan excavates the personal histories of gender-bending figures like Adnan Pekak, Kudret Şandra, and Zenne Necdet, constructed by media narratives. In their fictional text, Marina Papazyan questions the impact of late Ottoman ethno-nationalist structures and gender codes on today’s queer culture. Returning to Ülker Street, Jilet Sebahat offers a lament and testimony to the past and present of systematic violence against trans existence, thereby creating a contested geography of memory. The Trans Memory Collective presents a compilation of publications from the history of the trans movement in Turkey.
Narrative Power Alliance
Led by the Social Policy, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation Studies Association (SPoD), the Narrative Power Alliance brings together various advocacy groups in Turkey to resist state oppression and fight discrimination against women and LGBTI+ communities. Currently, the Alliance includes the Research Association for Democracy, Peace and Alternative Politics (DEMOS), Political Well-Being Platform, Havle Women’s Association, Positive Solidarity, Van Star Women’s Association, and KuirGaming. SPoD provides legal, psychological, and community support in the fields of gender identity and sexual orientation, while DEMOS questions the effects of state violence on disadvantaged groups and develops alternative democratic policies. Positive Solidarity offers support for individuals living with HIV. Havle Women’s Association advocates for gender equality in Muslim and broader conservative contexts; Van Star Women’s Association advances gender equality and inclusivity in rural Kurdish regions. Political Well-Being Platform strives to spread an understanding of care-based organizing in Turkish politics, whereas KuirGaming creates new inclusive spaces for expression and community-building through gaming platforms. Through this collective effort, they form a long-term alliance against authoritarian oppression and build a new narrative power that challenges gender-based discrimination.
Thanks to Barın Han, Istanbul; Protocinema, İstanbul & New York; Erdinç İnceer
Graphic Design: Can Küçük
Contacts: Berfin Atlı, [email protected]; Alper Turan, [email protected]; Onur Karaoğlu, [email protected]
