In Performance and Conversation: Nezaket Ekici

But All That Glitters Is Not Gold, 2014

8 May 2014, Thursday

Performance Installation: 18.00

Conversation: 19.00

Within the scope of the exhibition Neighbours, the artist Nezaket Ekici, featured in the video program Come Again?, performs a new piece entitled But All That Glitters Is Not Gold. After the performance, a conversation takes place between Nezaket Ekici and Birnur Temel, the assistant curator of Neighbours and the artistic programmer of Come Again?.

The performance shows Ekici confining herself in a golden cage, with 30 golden keys hanging above the cage. She tries to stretch her hand and arm through the bars to grab the nearest key in order to open the door and liberate herself from the cage. What starts like an easy game becomes oppressing as time passes by. She barely moves her arms and hardly reaches out through the grid. Her breathing gets heavier with each attempt; yet, she tries her luck with one key after the other until she finds the right one to escape her self-chosen destiny. Since the ancient times, the golden cage has been one of the symbols of self-inflicted confinement and imprisonment. Similarly, cities – and entire countries as well – can be compared to a golden cage. The golden cage in this performance is used to express the feelings of one’s confinement and suppression.

Ekici developed this work during her stay in the Culture Academy Villa Tarabya, Istanbul, within her residence scholarship, between December 2013 and September 2014.

The performance and conversation will take place at the “One Square Meter” in the exhibition, a space in which everything takes place on a one-square-meter stage.

The event is free of charge and the conversation will be held in Turkish.

Thanks to:

Güvenç Özgür, Yunus Emre Aydın, Güvenç Özgür, Branka Pavlovic, Artin Ahoron, Volkan Kaplan, Ali Güvenç Atılgan, Belgü Moda Evi

Photo: Güvenç Özgür