1 January–31 December 2021
Artists
As of 2018, two scholarships will be granted annually to artists who live in Istanbul. The existing Istanbul stipend of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe was expanded to a true exchange, with a jury annually selecting two artists from Istanbul to be sent to Berlin and vice versa. The aim is to further enhance the relations between the partner cities of Berlin and Istanbul as well as the connections to the Turkish art scene. This is done with the conviction that international exchange and direct communication allow cultural diversity be experienced as an enrichment, inviting people to a change in perspective.
January–June 2021
Alper Aydın
Alper Aydın works in the field of Land Art. He studies the physical conditions of the world around him and the impact of humans on ecological processes by means of sociological, historical and archaeological infrastructures. In photographs, sculptures, installations, performances and temporary arrangements of natural materials, the artist intervenes in the landscape, leaving temporary traces by making observations in natural settings, collecting samples, and transforming the surroundings by adding new forms.
For his residency in Berlin, Aydın is planning to conduct an artistic research on stones at historical locations in the city. With these stones, he would like to realize an installation in public space that tells the story of Berlin from a different, multi-faceted viewpoint. He will also continue to work on his long-term project “The Greatest Microbes”. After Ordu, Konya, Paris and Istanbul, Berlin will be the fifth city to be infected by Aydın with his graffiti.
Alper Aydın (born 1989 in Ordu, Turkey) studied Painting at the Anatolian Art Academy in Ordu (graduated 2007), earned his Bachelor’s in Educational Studies (2007-2011) and Fine Art at Gazi University, Ankara and at the Academy in Macerata, Italy (2011-2014). From 2014 to 2019, he took part in the PhD Programme in Sculpture at Hacettepe University, Ankara. His works have been shown in numerous exhibitions and biennials, including Mardin Biennial (2018), 15th Istanbul Biennial (2017), and Cappadox Festival, Nevşehir, Cappadocia (2017).
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In the third year of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe’s Istanbul-Berlin Scholarship, two artists from Istanbul have been selected to spend six months in Berlin. After Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu was in Berlin from July – December 2020, Alper Aydın is awarded the stipend from January until July 2021. Due to Covid-19 restrictions he will start his residency online and travel to Berlin hopefully in April to work on his projects on site.
15 July–15 December 2021
Dilek Winchester
Dilek Winchester’s work deals with mistranslations, language and expressions of emotion. Her core theme is the feeling of belonging that emerges through literature. In her latest text-based installation, she explores the reform of the Turkish alphabet and the literary canon with a special focus on the writings of the Karamanlides, a Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox people originally from Anatolia, and on Armenian-Turkish books from the nineteenth century. In a series of video works, she explores the symbolism and history of alphabets.
Another focus of Winchester’s work is the classification and representation of emotions via language games that explore the use of metaphors to express emotions and what is lost in translation.
In Berlin, she plans to develop a series of prints about the symbolic significance of alphabets and the transliteration of texts from one alphabet into another. She is also planning a new sculptural-acoustic version of “SANAT DITYE BITR ŞEY VAR”, a text-based intervention recently shown in Antwerp. Addressing the instability of the voice in times of crisis, the work features a sentence spoken by a person with a stutter translated into written form. Translated into English, it reads: “THERE’S THIS THING CALLED ART.”
Dilek Winchester (born 1974) studied at Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, London, and London Metropolitan University, receiving her masters degree from the Dept. of Sculpture at Marmara University, Istanbul. Her work has featured in many exhibitions in Turkey and abroad, most recently in her solo show “Attending the Void” at DEPO, Istanbul (2020). dilekwinchester.com
Event:
Thursday, 25 November 2021, 17:00
Studio visit with Dilek Winchester (en)
The scholarship is funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and takes place as part of a cooperation between the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) and ZK/U (from 2018 to mid 2021), from June of 2021 on with Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin, and DEPO in Istanbul.
Financed by
Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa