PAST

Welcome to Homeland @Cihangir Sadık Pasha Mansion

14 SEPTEMBER 2017 - 21 OCTOBER 2017

Pilot is pleased to announce that a selection of Halil Altındere's latest works will be on display in a solo show at the historic Sadık Pasha Mansion in Cihangir. Curated by DAS Art Project., "Welcome to Homeland" will present recent works produced through various media, including video, painting, installation, and sculpture. The exhibition, spread across two flours of the 19th century mansion will open on September 14th and run through October 21st.

"Welcome to Homeland" brings together Halil Altındere’s multidisciplinary works focusing on the “refugee crisis” that haven't been exhibited in Istanbul. The exhibit provides an inclusive frame for the refugee crisis by using two axes of narrative that are constructed by the two refugee figures who turn into heroes, in fact, superheroes. Their stories get fictionalized with Altındere’s phantasms that manifest themselves differently each time, never losing touch with the bitter reality.

Space Refugee makes up the first portion of the exhibit; it consists of over twenty works that are centered around Aleppian astronaut Muhammed Ahmed Faris, who has spent seven days in outer space in 1987 and had to settle in Istanbul as a refugee in 2012. This work envisions Mars as an utopia without tyranny and injustice, somewhere that could belong to anyone for it belongs to no one. This is why it provides an alternative shelter to the refugees, and the work presents various experiments regarding life on Mars. While Space Refugee investigates an utopic suggestion for a home, Homeland, that which music is one of the main components of, puts forward Syrian rapper Muhammad Abu Hajar who lives in Berlin as a porte-parole and exhibits the present situation of the refugees with a road story aesthetic. Large scale photograph Köfte Airlines addresses the transportation problem of the refugees. Altındere’s response to “how will they go?” is a mise-en-scene.

In his latest work, Altındere does not lose the local angle when dealing with more universal matters. He reveals the destructive nature of war through the refugee crisis. Instead of observing and showing, he chooses to convey the refugee crisis by exalting minor stories and associative narrative. While traveling from outer space to Mars, from Mediterranean to Berlin, this exhibit does not follow solely detached stories of those who are displaced; instead, it investigates the mutual feelings we share, reminding us our own deterritorialization.

The exhibition is being realized with the main sponsorship of Famelog, in cooperation with the venue sponsors Seyhan Özdemir Sarper & Ferit Sarper and an exhibition design by Pattu Architecture.

Venue, Sadık Pasha Mansion, Cihangir Cad. No:2

Exhibition days & hours, Tuesday - Saturday, 10:30 - 18:30