Galeri Nev Istanbul is excited to host a group exhibition curated by Pelin Uran as the final show of the season. The exhibition titled We do not know this to be so brings together mostly video works by five international artists whose works will be shown in Istanbul for the first time.
Departing from the multiple connotations of the concept of death, the show aims to question the significations of death. Instead of regarding death as a negative and an irrelevant notion, it champions the idea that accepts death as a catalyzer for life. Among all of the significations of death, the show focuses on the power of remembering and reminding death as a transformative power for human life. Combining works by artists who contemplate on death from different perspectives, the exhibition features time-based media, namely video and film, and highlights the close relationship of time and death.
Among some of the works that will be on display is a video work by The Propeller Group, a Vietnam-based artist collective. The Living Need Light, The Dead Need Music (2014), produced for 2015 New Orleans Biennial, narrates with powerful music the tale of Vietnam’s fantastic funerals, multicolored death rituals, and the death and rebirth of a transsexual youngster.
London-based artist, a recipient of The Film London Jarman Award 2017, Oreet Ashery is taking part in the exhibition with a single episode from her twelve-episode web video series titled Revisiting Genesis (2016). The ninth part of this surreal series Our Nurses focuses on the experiences and ideas palliative care nurses exchange as they work with terminal patients.
Another one of the works on display is by Joanna Rajkowska, an artist who divides her time between London and Nowogród and is widely known with her public works. Her The Peterborough Child (2012) tells the story of the failure to bring to life a symbolic infant grave designed to be built in a public space of the city and inspired by the oval tombs of the Bronze Age, alluding to the ancient roots of the city of Peterborough.
Through different works, the show creates a space to contemplate on several questions such as whether “death can be understood and accepted on a conscious level, or does no one believe in his own death? Is what we face in the death of a beloved our own death or the recognition of the fact that we are not yet dead?”.
The exhibition is accompanied by a brochure that includes a comprehensive essay on death written by the curator along with all of the works on display.