19:00-20:00: Residency artist Ece Eldek in conversation with curator Susanne Weiß
Moderation: Tuğba Esen
Kunstquartier Bethanien, 1. OG Studio 139

Since January 15, 2024, multidisciplinary artist and poet Ece Eldek has been living and working as a resident artist of the Berlin Senate and the nGbK at Kunstquartier Bethanien. In her artistic practice, which includes video, photography, performance, installation, and poetry, Eldek explores the relationships between space, objects, and human interactions. She focuses on moments where spatial relations unexpectedly collapse or transform, examining objects and their associated interactions to create a narrative reading with their metaphorical potentials.

Eldek’s work not only reflects on the interplay between space and objects in daily life but also delves into how this reflection is shaped both theoretically and practically. She emphasizes reconstructing and reviving the potential of things within the context of transformative human processes. Central to her work is the intricate network of social, political, and cultural relations, along with the mechanisms and processes that intertwine them. Based on the idea that subjective experience is reshaped and produced by the environment, memory and social/political space, she places herself in various networks of relationships as an artist.

In the conversation with curator Susanne Weiß, Eldek will discuss her recent project and the research she has been conducting in Berlin over the past five months. See also eceeldek.com

Between 2005 and 2009, Ece Eldek studied Fine Arts and Graphic Design at Marmara University in Istanbul. She is one of the founding members of the art initiatives TOZ Artist Run Space and Her Hal in Istanbul and is co-founder and editor of the online magazine Moero, founded in 2020, which contributes to the visibility of women in the poetry scene. She has shown her artistic work in numerous international exhibitions and biennials, including most recently at the Istanbul Biennial, SALT Galata Istanbul and the Piccadilly International Art Museum in Seoul, South Korea.

Susanne Weiß is a curator and art mediator living in Berlin, where she also studied museology. Her curatorial approach is driven by the belief that the (art) exhibition has to be intriguing and mediating its contexts. Therefore, she has initiated projects and formats which critically encompass a chorus of voices, from different disciplines and directions. She has learned and worked in and between London, Oxford, Jerusalem, Vienna, Dresden, Sharjah, Heidelberg, Istanbul, Halle and Berlin. See also mukimaki.de

Tugba Esen is a Berlin based freelance editor. She studied Advertising and Media and Communication Systems at Istanbul Bilgi University; worked as the editorial coordinator and press relations manager of the London and Istanbul based art gallery, Pi Artworks; the editor of the “Art Market” supplement of Istanbul Art News and culture and arts pages of Agos Weekly. Her first book titled What is an actor after all? was published by Aras Publishing in 2017. Alongside her freelance projects, she currently works in the field of social pedagogy in Germany.

The stipend of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion is made possible in the frame of a cooperation between the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) and the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien in Berlin as well as DEPO in Istanbul.