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Collaborations 2008

IAAB (International Exchange and Studio Programme Basel) Residency in Collaboration with Platform Garanti
October-December 2008 2008

Inci Furni born in Bursa, she studied at the Mimar Sinan Üniversity between 1996 and 2002, Fine Art Department at Istanbul.

Furni’ s work is made of drawings, object and words; as she asserts, most of her works are informed by her walks around Istanbul, collecting impressions and object and taking notes, turning them later into “fictions where everything is in the wrong place”. Furni’s research focuses on the analysis of the role of language – both verbal and visual – in contemporary society. She is interests in the ideology and fundamental ideas behind symbols derived from pop culture and political statements. Emblematic is her last body of work, Fazin, a series of drawings that are to a large extent comical, and in which she compiles symbols and figures, draws from contemporary culture, and makes declaratory sentences such as, Imagination and control, Cerebral fingerprint or This machine is reading my thoughts.

In 2008 she was a resident at the Atelier Frankfurt’s Residency programme and at the IAAB, International Exchange and Studio Programme Basel.

In recent years, Inci Furni has participated in exhibition such as Made in Turkey, Atelier Frankfurt, 2008; Connect The Dot 1 and Zig Zag Indipendent Drawing Gig 4, both in Hafriyat-Karakoy, Istanbul, 2008; You would gobble down the world yet not have enough, 10 International Istanbul Bienal Special Project”, Istanbul, 2007; Explosion Wheel, K2, Izmir, 2007.

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Collaborations 2008

Spike Island Residency in Collaboration with Platform Garanti

Fall 2008

Fatma Ciftci was born in Amasya in 1981 and now lives and works in Istanbul. She graduated from the Bilkent University Fine Arts Department of Ankara in 2005.

Cifti works with photography, video, performance, animation and drawing, merging these different media within her artistic practice. She often introduces found images and objects to her works in order to invent games that blur reality and fiction, as well as modes of representation and creativity. In her recent works Cifti’s interest has focused on political and military issues. For example I will be a soldier is a series of eight embroidered drawings that each depict the black silhouette of a soldier in a different military position. The inspiration for this series is a toy soldier and the childish expression ‘when I grow up I want to be a solder’. The relationship between the influence of such a toy and a child’s imagined dream can be seen as both ironic and paradoxical.

Once Upon a Time in Istanbul is a video project in which Cifti overlays a found amateur 16mm film with dialogue from old Turkish movies. The video was shot in the 1970s in Istanbul and it presents scenes of people and their social activities of that period. Cifti’s layering of periods and subjects creates a complex sequence that sees change condensed into one act.

In 2008 Cifti attended the Spike Island Residency programme in Bristol for three months. Her work was presented on the YAMA public screen in Istanbul in 2008 and in Asia Art Now, Arario Beijing, China, 2007; Mom’s Livingroom, Goyang Art Studio Exhibition Hall, Seoul, Korea, 2007; freekick (hospitality zone of 9th International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey, 2005; and in the 23rd Exhibition of Contemporary Artists of Istanbul and of Diyarbakir, Turkey, 2004.

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Collaborations 2008

San Servolo ArtLab Venice Residency is in Collaboration with Platform Garanti
Fall 2008

Erdem Ergaz was born in Izmir in 1977 and lives and works in Istanbul. He graduated from Mimar Sinan University Fine Arts Academy, Department of Painting and received his MFA degree from the same university in 2005.

As curator Claudia Di Lecce stated: “The painting of Erdem Ergaz admits us to a cold world regulated by religious lines, a scientific universe catalogued by a schematising rationality”. Ergaz creates this world using cold flat colours and schematic and technical drawings, which remind us of industrial design and architectural plans. The subject of his paintings is the human figure, but these figures appear small, anonymous and alienated by their contexts. Ergaz investigates the role and identity of people, interpersonal relationships and social interaction. In addition, he is interested in the role of science and religion in society, especially in the seeming incapability of preventing violence within these systems. These topics form the inspiration and themes of his works which include Metaphysics II (2008), Exercises for the family (2007), and Dynamic of mass suicide (2007).

In 2008 Erdem Ergaz was invited to the San Servolo Residency Programme in Venice for two months. He has participated in many exhibitions including No man is an Island, Venice (2008); Zig Zag, Independent Drawing Gig 4, Hafriyat, Istanbul (2008); Contemporary Istanbul, Gallery Splendid, Istanbul (2008); Makul, Hafriyat, Istanbul (2008); “Connect the Dots 1.5″, Fargfabriken, Stockholm (2008).

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Collaborations 2008

Can Xalant Residency in Collaboration with Platform Garanti

September 7- October 12 2008

Erkan Ozgen was born in Derik, Mardin in 1971. He graduated from the University of Cukurova, Department of Painting. He lives and works in Diyarbakir.

Erkan Ozgen is interested in political and social issues. He believes that the language of art can play an active role in social processes. His works are influenced by his experience of living in the problematic city of Diyarbakir, in the south-west of Turkey, where the cultural relationship between the Turkish and Kurdish communities is intense. Erkan uses video and photography as a tool to show his resistance to constrictions and contradictions, as well as a strong sense of denial that form political and military power in contemporary Turkish society. He often confronts the problem of attempting to define an identity for those living in dislocated border towns, or for strangers who live in foreign countries, as we can see in his two last videos Robben and Origin, both shot in 2008. In order to understand the practice of Ozgen, it is important to mention his participation both as an artist and organiser in the workshop Here as the Centre of the World, between 2006 and 2007, in which six artists from six different cities (Beirut, Damascus, Diyarbakir, Enschede, Khartoum and Taipei) shared their reflections about the architecture, the social history, and the current issues pertaining to the cities that they came from.

In 2008 Erkan Ozgen participated in Can Xalant-Center for Creating and Contemporary Thought Residency Programme. His works were shown in Beyond Paradise, Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, 2008; The New York Arab and South Asian Film Festivals, New York, 2008; Article 23, Galerija Skuk, Ljubljana, 2008; Catching Breath, Kunsthalle Basel, 2008; Destroy Athens, 1st Athens Biennial, 2007; and No Future, Bloomberg Space, London, 2007.

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Collaborations 2008

Atelier Frankfurt Residency in Collaboration with Platform Garanti
October-November 2008

Ilgin Seymen after studying sculpture at the Marmara University of Istanbul, she attended the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA MFA, Sculpture.

Ilgin Seymen works with various mediums such as video, photography and installations. Her research engages in an analysis of everyday life within ordinary activities – like smoking and shopping – and utilizes common objects, such as home furniture. She carefully selects and then utilizes in her works those objects and images which have no personal style and in which the homologating of people’s lifestyles is evident; in this way she wants to disclose the rules of the social and cultural structures of our consumer society. To explain her work, Seymen has said, “I make art as a reaction to certain structures of existing manmade society. I react to the restrictions of unspoken rules and behavior, as well as manipulation of mass culture that shapes urban life”.

In the installation Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?,
Seymen creates an archive/catalogue of home furniture from IKEA. She uses these to create miniature replicas, which she then arranges in ways that emphasize their relations to one another. In a sense, the artist creates a correlative association between each piece to symbolize the homogenization processes that take place in society at large. In the video she produced during her residency period in Frankfurt, she analyzes her personal, daily life, and documents in rapid sequences everything she does in a given day.

Ilgin Seymen was invited to the Frankfurt Artist in Residence programme in autumn 2008 for two months. She had her first solo exhibition Nothing Personal at the Melting Point Gallery, San Francisco in 2007. Seymen has participated in several group exhibitions, including the Urban Jealousy, the 1st International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, 2008; Post-Post card 10, The LAB, San Francisco, 2006; SF Open Studios Exhibition, SomARTS, San Francisco, 2006.

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