Hold, 2018
Lara Ögel & Merve Ünsal, Hold (Blue and Red), 2018.
Lara Ögel & Merve Ünsal, Hold (Blue and Red), 2018.
Lara Ögel & Merve Ünsal, Hold (Blue and Red), 2018.
Lara Ögel & Merve Ünsal, Hold (Blue and Red), 2018.
Site-specific installation with audio, photograms, projection, and saran wrap. Installation view from Ne Bana Sen, Ne Sana Ben at halka sanat projesi, Istanbul, August 2018.
Addressing notions of inhabited space, what it is to hold space in relation to community and cultural production, Lara Ögel and Merve Ünsal use photograms and sculptural inventions to create a constellation of surfaces in the halka art project space in Moda, Istanbul. The exhibition was the last one in the space, before the artist-run initiative had to move out due to rising rent costs. The departure point for the installation is a found image of the Salt Lake in Turkey, which had turned red after the appearance of a species of algae because of the climate emergency. This image’s hinting at imminent danger served as the foundation of the installation.
On the ground floor of the exhibition space, a photogram of the window above the door at 430pm—the golden hour of photography—marks the space. On the second floor, a column is reproduced using saran wrap, gesturing to marking, tracing, and holding a space at a specific time and place.
Tracing the boundaries of the objecthood of space and time, Lara and Merve contemplate the relationship between architectural bodies and the image as a body, collating the two to see where and how architecture overlaps, undermines, and buries the image.
The two-week exhibition also hosted reading and discussion groups, using the objects and surfaces of the exhibition as a toolbox to dissect some of the themes the artists deal with.
