How do we move through environments, be they physical or social? How do we navigate the web of affordances created by individuals and objects alike? This constant motion of relating to each other is one that everyone is doing everywhere at every moment. You are doing it right now. And while change desires to be the only constant, we often find ourselves in static moments that shape our experiences. To reflect and constantly re-define one’s position within these fixed instances thus becomes a necessity for movement itself.
In November 2022, a group of 21 students from the Master Photography & Society program of the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, NL traveled to Izmir. While visualizing our relations to this place that is new to all of us, we simultaneously got to know the collective Darağaç, sharing both time and thoughts about artistic practices and processes.
Through the apparent randomness of the trip, walking and stopping along the way, we encountered relations that developed into experiences, creating works that connect with each other not by design, but organically into its own coherent web. The photographs and videos span communities and social constructs: water, rocks, the path of borders in the environment and of the mind, all the while asking what movements we make, and how they are obstructed.
Although one could follow a physical map, our pop-up exhibition invited to go off the beaten path(s) and meander, at one’s own pace, into the infinite possible conversations that remain suspended around us all.
We would like to thank Ali Kemal Ertem, Ali Cem Doğan and the team of Darağaç for making this exhibition possible and for their generous support and hospitality during our time in Izmir.
The exhibition was curated by Manu Ferneini and Pascal Giese.
︎︎︎ EXHIBITION & MAKING-OF
