Creating Space in Urban Environment and Exploring Possibilities | THE PATH

Panel with Şehnaz Layıkel, Umut Azad Akkel, Patrizia Bach, Ina Weber & Pegah Keshmirshekan

Public space is sometimes an inspiration for art and sometimes a container. It shapes, carries and exhibits art in different forms and at different locations. For the spectator, it may be an unexpected or a planned encounter. In this panel discussion, the relationship between art and public space will be discussed from artistic and critical perspectives. The relationship between art and public space will be conceptualized with all its potentiality and elements of surprise. Practical examples of different art forms will enrich the conversation. Together, the dynamics of the changing city, the place and the role of collective and individual artistic practices will be discussed from a conceptual and practical perspective. Remarkable practices from Istanbul and Berlin will be given space and expression.

Don't miss the inspiring conversation! We're looking forward to seeing you.

Doors Open 18:00 // Event Start 18:30

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Şehnaz Layıkel was born in 1975 in Istanbul, Turkey. She has been living and working in Berlin since 2017. Since 2017, I have been doing my doctorate at the Berlin University of the Arts, at the Faculty of Design and working in the Gropius Bau as a member of the education team. She has worked in NGOs for many years and coordinated community-based art and culture projects, as well as human rights projects. She also curated an exhibition on the refugee problem in Berlin in 2017. She was awarded the Echoing Green (2007) and Ashoka (2012) Fellowship Prizes.

Umut Azad Akkel was born in 1991 in Izmir, Turkey. Between 2010-2015 he lived in Istanbul and studied industrial product design. He has been living and working in Berlin since 2015. Since 2016 he has been studying at the Berlin University of the Arts, in the Weber class. He practices visual arts, product design and curates cultural seminars (such as.B.'Fava Connection' and 'Iran 101'). He is one of the co-founders of the initiative I.D.A. (Intersectionality / Diversity / Anti-Discrimination) at the Berlin University of the Arts. He is a member of the Soltity Collective (Fine Art Experimental Group) and BBK Berlin. He was awarded the DAAD Prize 2020. - umutazadakkel.com

Patrizia Bach is a visual artist living and working in Berlin. Her main artistic medium is drawing while she has been working on topics such as archiving, collecting, and re-arranging as well as approaching the city as a site of memory, history and storage. For the past decade, she has been focusing on long-term projects that include in-depth research processes which result in expansive drawing installations that take over architecture. She also works in several interdisciplinary collaborations, notably with Regina Dürig. Bach received numerous scholarships with her works on that subject and was a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude (2018) and will be at Kulturakademie Tarabya (Istanbul, 2021).

Ina Weber (*1964) lives and works in Berlin. 1989 - 94 Studies at the University of Kassel with Harry Kramer and Martin Kippenberger; since 2016 professor for sculpture at the UdK Universität der Künste, Berlin.

Pegah Keshmirshekan is currently working and living in Berlin, Germany. The key question that she deals with in her artistic practice is how collective identities contribute to the formation of one’s personhood in the globalized world. Pegah has co-curated events and seminars on aspects of inter-cultural practices in contemporary art such as Fava Connection and Iran101. She is also a co-founder of the initiative I.D.A. (Intersectionality, Diversity, Antidiscrimination) and a member of the Soltity Collective.

THE PATH: A Participatory Public Art Project

What do we experience in the metropoles of today’s world and what do the metropoles experience? Amidst all the flux of migration, gentrification and rapid urban change is the metropole able to contain us and vice versa? What if the paths we take every day start from nowhere and lead nowhere? Is it a togetherness that we experience or is it an ´otherness´ with a potential? What are the results, alternatives, solutions and what can art´s role be in this process?

THE PATH is a multidisciplinary art project that problematises the relationship between the metropole and the individual from a queer, feminist point of view. Inspired by the pedestrian bridges over the highways in İstanbul, the participatory public installation at Tempelhofer Feld by Umut Azad Akkel invites the participants to an experience simulating the complex character of our co-existence with/within/despite the metropole.

Similarly, the events designed and planned around the conceptual basis of the installation, that will take place at Tempelhofer Feld and at Oyoun will create an experiential and intellectual hub for analyzing our complex being within/with/despite the metropole. The overall perspective of the series of events will be approaching the theme from multiple views and raising critical questions about all its complexity. The focus will be Berlin and Istanbul as two interrelated metropoles and the flux of migration between the two with its implications and possible historical as well as recent meanings.

See the full programme of THE PATH here: https://oyoun.de/event/the-path

The Path project was produced by Oyoun in collaboration with Umut Azad Akkel (IG: @azadonfires) as artistic director and Şehnaz Layıkel (IG: @sehnazlayikel) as lead curator. It was funded by the Lotto Stiftung and UdK KKWV.

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Please note: To take part in events at Oyoun or visit our exhibitions, you need to have a negative corona test from the same day or proof of vaccination / recovery. FFP2 Masks are mandatory at Oyoun until further notice. Further information about our hygiene concept can be found here: oyoun.de/hygienekonzept