Galeri Manâ is pleased to announce Hera Buyuktasciyan’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, ”The land across the blind” between the dates 15 May – 28 June 2014. Taking the relationship between sea and land as a metaphor, the exhibition explores the potential “to see beyond the visible”, understood in art historical and anthropological terms.

The exhibition takes its title from the prophecy of the oracle of Delphi that Byzas of Megara followed in his quest to found the new city of Byzance. Building on the speculative movement of the prophecy that defines a piece of land by its position “across the blind” and a promise to be seen, Buyuktasciyan’s drawings and installations explore the relationship between the visible and the invisible, evoking a movement on the axis of presence and absence. Beyond the static and retinal understanding of vision, they stretch out towards movement in space and time on one hand, and cognitive processes such as contemplation and remembrance on the other. In Buyuktasciyan’s installations, architectural structures such as balconies and docks point to a transitional space between the inside and outside, the past and the present time, the submarine realm and the surface of the land. Taking sea navigation and the relationship between land and sea as metaphors, the exhibition delves into traces beyond the visible surface of things, the sediments of passing time, and the topographic and historical depths of its location, Karakoy and Galata.

An artist book will be published at the occasion of this exhibition, focusing on Buyuktasciyan’s creative process. A conversation between Hera Buyuktasciyan, curatorial duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi and Asli Seven, who have contributed to the publication, will be held at Galeri Mana on Tuesday, 20 May 2014 at 5 pm.

Hera Buyuktasciyan (Istanbul 1984) uses metaphors from local myths, historic and iconographic elements, opens a new narrative scope for the ‘other’ in her works and combines it with concepts of absence and invisibility to compose an imaginary connection through identity, memory, space and time.
Buyuktasciyan’s recent exhibitions include “In Situ”, PIST// Interdisciplinary Project Space, Istanbul (2013); “Envy, Enmity, Embarrassment”, ARTER, İstanbul, (2013); BLUR, Weltraum, Munich (2012); Reflecting on Reflection, Galeri Mana, İstanbul (2012); art.homes, Munich-İstanbul (2010-2011). Buyuktasciyan realized a performance and sound installation called “The Afternoon Odyssey” at SALT Beyoglu in 2012. She has recently participated un the residency programs at PIST// Interdisciplinary Project Space, Istanbul (2012); AIR DROP, Stockholm (2012); Villa Waldberta, Munich (2012) Arts and Cultural Studies Laboratory, Yerevan (2011). Buyuktasciyan was the Turkey finalist for the 2012 Henkel Art Prize and she was recently invited to participate at the Delfina Foundation Residency in London in summer 2014.