Ulufer Çelİk Studio

Fresh Myths, Different Times w./ Merve Kılıçer

Exhibited and performed in Growing Space, Rotterdam (2020) and Corridor Project Space (2020)

Ulufer Çelik and Merve Kılıçer explore together collective memory and performance in relation to pre-monotheistic beliefs and folkloric, imperial and shamanic traditions rooted in the history of Anatolia (Turkey). They approach heritage as an ongoing dialogue between generations, activating a tone for pain, traumas and bodily memories. Within Frozen Time, they will present Fresh Myths – Different Times, a sonic and trans-lucid environment expressing a longing for a land and language, a chance for an intimate understanding and the formation of a multilayered knowledge.

From Corridor Poject Space’s Frozen Time Performance Program Catalogue

A heritage is an ongoing dialogue between generations. A way to activate this heritage in an-other landscape is only possible through the lenses of fresh myths and different times. Nevertheless, this endeavour also activates a tone for pain, traumas and bodily memories. This piece expresses a longing for a land and language, as a chance for an intimate understanding. Sharing this collaborative process, in this format will open up a space for healing, and knowledge sharing. The spatial intervention will contain the elements that include references from our research, certain material forms, images, sound, text and performance.

Our research includes references to productions of figures through folkloric, imperial and shamanic traditions in the history of Anatolia. How can this production transform these influences and further lead into a ground for thriving meanings, and understandings of a multilayered knowledge?

The performance includes poems by Nilgün Marmara, Gülten Akın and Nazım Hikmet translated by the artists from Turkish to English. This work is an investigation into the possible significance of folkloric, imperial and shamanic traditions of Anatolian history in today’s society.

Quintessential Pirateness in the Age of Konijneneiland a.k.a Coney Island Adventures w./ Cihad Caner

Summer Lab 2019 at Rib Rotterdam | 01.08.–08.09.2019

This presentation is the first phase of Çelik and Caner’s long-term research on piracy, modes of being, and navigation methodologies. The project departs from the motive of a sailboat relief found in Katendrechtse Lagedijk. This finding supports the project as artists collect learnings and connect historical themes, and references of Port of Salee (Morocco) and New Amsterdam, Pirate Wardiyya (Jack Ward a.k.a Jack Sparrow) and Murad Rais (Jan Janszoon van Haarlem).

Summer Lab 2019 has enabled the tools to deconstruct and scatter their ideas and thoughts to experiment during the process. The exhibition draft includes re-enactment of selected parts from the play A Christian turned Turk: Or, The Tragicall Lives and Deaths of the two Famous Pirates, Ward and Dansiker written by Robert Daborne in 1612, that addresses the notions of racism and colonial fantasies via conversion to Islam and re-presentation of ‘the other’. The spatial declaration of flag-making, in relation to ownership and material porosity and the reading of children’s poem, Bad Grandpa: Ballad of Murad the Captain by Jim Billiter (Murad Rais’ great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson) connect the his story with present time and Haarlem-Konijneneiland (Coney Island) and Rotterdam through depicted scenes in series of films.

Quintessential Pirateness will complement and establish a conversation with the year-long programme De Fluyt en de Hoi, led by Paul Elliman. Çelik and Caner will share Rib’s space with a handcrafted boat that was built by artist Marie Lorenz in July for her project Tide and Current Taxi Rotterdam as a part of De Fluyt en de Hoi.

This research was made possible thanks to the generous support of Rib, STICHTING-NAC, and MyA.

Jackals and Arabs w./ Alaa Abu Asad

Performed in State of Concept Athens in 2018.

How do we communicate? And how do we translate representation’s potentiality?

The work springs from a dialogue between us about identical words used in our daily spoken languages of Turkish and dialects of vernacular (Palestinian) Arabic. It phonetically challenges the implications and comprehensions of these words, while interpreting the relationships between them through semantics and materiality of their representations. We also comment on a history as a repertoire of events from a non-linear perspective.

Where Does the Myth Dwell? w./ Bengi Güldoğan

desktop video and performance, 20 minutes , 2018.

>>> To receive a link for the complete work, please send an e-mail to ulufercelik@gmail.com

This footage is a part of a research on destroyed or permanently closed museums located alongside the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Mesopotamia Region due to the terror attacks and urban renewal projects in 2017.