Turkeys Queer Art Community Walks a Thin Line

ISTANBUL When curator Alper Turan and his collaborators from Turkey's queer and feminist groups discuss plans for their upcoming exhibition in Istanbul, they have more to consider than which artists to include and how to hang the works.

To be honest, half of our energy is spent on how we can create a safe space not only for the organizations involved, the artists and ourselves, but also for the public, Turan said. Hyperallergic. We discuss the neighborhood where they can come safely. This is new to me.

Since the Turkish government repressed During Istanbul's once-vibrant Pride March a decade ago, the country's LGBTQ+ community became increasingly under siege. Homophobic rhetoric was a pillar of President Recep Tayyip Erdoans re-election campaign last year. Last month, police raids a private party and arrested participants at an LGBTQ+ bar. The streaming site Mubi recently canceled its annual Istanbul Film Festival after government authorities banned planned screening of new film Weirdstarring Daniel Craig as a gay expat in Mexico.

Hearing these constant threats, this constant news that the government is talking about how evil we are, really affects our mental state, said Berlin and Istanbul-based curator Melih Aydemir. Hyperallergic. But until recently, the art world felt relatively safe from risk.

But the government's ban on a trans rights exhibition at the Depo in Beyolu this summer, following anti-LGBTQ+ protests at a separate art exhibition last year, shook artists and cultural workers in Turkey, forcing them to try to cross one more line thinner between creative resistance and self-censorship.

On the one hand, queer artists in Türkiye are experiencing a period of blossoming, the Istanbul-based artist said. the language of Kemancwhose effervescent work often combines lush floral designs with erotic scenes. As a member of the Snr/No (Border/Less), which curates exhibitions of underrepresented LGBTQ+ artists, it's actually been difficult lately to find queer artists who aren't already working with galleries, which is surprising, Kemanc said. Hyperallergic. However, they added that the political situation makes it risky to associate artistic events directly with Pride Month or with openly LGBTQ+ language.

Exhibiting queer artists in galleries while detaching the works from a political context risks becoming a form of pinkwashing or exoticism, according to Ozan nlko, another member of the Snr/Sz team who is also administrative and visual coordinator of the online contemporary art publication. Argonautes. nlko is curating an exhibition scheduled to open in early 2025 that focuses on self-censorship in the artistic process.

Self-censorship can also be a way to create a sense of security in a very precarious environment, nlko said. Hyperallergic. This oppressive regime even affects the inner world of artists, so I think we need to question ourselves what we are not saying and why.

One of the artists who will be featured in Nlkos' upcoming exhibition is furkan ztekinwho often uses collage and abstraction in her works on paper to explore themes like belonging and loss. For an exhibition organized by Snr/Sz last year, entitled Resurgence in fragmentsZtekin exhibited ink-on-paper drawings of everyday objects, including a fan, a whistle, an umbrella, and a megaphone, all rendered in black and white to reflect the public suppression of symbols associated with LGBTQ+ protests.

These threats and political restrictions push us to find alternative forms of resistance, said Ztekin. Hyperallergic. If colors are banned, we offer black and white exhibitions; if the shapes are restricted, we create shows with amorphous shapes.

After a previous wave of political attacks directed against the rainbow flag, Turan organized an exhibition, A finger for an eye at the Poe Artist Run Space, in which he also invited artists to create works without colors or human forms. I was inviting them to use a certain abstraction so that there were no detectable and targetable queer bodies in that space, he said. My idea was also to find an alternative to the visibility policies adopted by the West and to ask myself: do they really work, do they really create safe environments?

Although the gallery still seems to be a relatively safe space in Istanbul, it is also often a cloistered space. I often wonder: are we doing these shows for the same 100 people who go to all the exhibitions? Aydemir said Hyperallergic. An exhibition he organized at the Sanatorium gallery this year, A crack through which we sproutgrappling with how queer identities intersect with the diasporic experience, how symbols such as the rainbow flag have been politically co-opted, and which groups are and are not included in LGBTQ+ solidarity. The exhibition's public programming included a poetry performance by a queer Palestinian writer and a DJing workshop for queer youth.

Queer artists are also disproportionately affected by the growing unemployment, poverty and precariousness across Turkey, according to Aylime Asl Demir, director of the Ankara Queer Art Program and coordinator of academic and cultural programs at Kaos GL, the oldest LGBTQ+ association in Türkiye.

Events in the field of culture and arts are always the first to be canceled because they are considered a luxury, Demir said. Hyperallergic. But who can afford not to work in this country? Few LGBTI+ artists, who do not have the support of their families.

Independent initiatives such as Snr/Sz and the Ankara Queer Art Program, which offers two-month residencies, aim to give artists space to create more freely, but face some of the same challenges themselves. Due to Turkey's extreme economic collapse and soaring rents in Istanbul, we could not continue to maintain our physical gallery, said photographer Elin Acun, co-founder of the feminist and queer project KOL Art Space. We aim to maintain our existence without a fixed space.

Online platforms are also increasingly important venues for artist talks, panels and even exhibitions due to restrictions on LGBTQ+-themed physical gatherings and reluctance from many art world institutions, even so-called progressive ones, to show works that could be considered too political. At the same time, economic struggles and political repression have led many artists and cultural workers to seek opportunities elsewhere. Like Aydemir, Turan currently lives abroad, as a doctoral student at the University of Toronto, although both have expressed a sense of responsibility to continue organizing exhibitions in Turkey.

I don't see the point in feeling sorry for yourself. This is how things are happening now, not only in Türkiye but around the world, and we will continue to fight, Kemanc said. It's like an old Turkish saying that I really like: no matter what tricks the hunter knows, the bear knows just as many ways to escape.