„SO FAR TILL NOW – SOFA(R) ON THE WAY“
2022, Istanbul, Turkey
Collective SOFA(R) ON THE WAY: Barbara Eichhorn, Anna Khodorkovskaya, Joanna Zabielska + Alper Şen
The urgent question of how we use our resources demands from us awareness, rethinking and appropriate action, no matter where we are or where we live. This applies not only to the highest decision-making levels, the responsibility for our actions concerns all of us.
Classical hierarchies of art production are being abolished and the most important momentum of the artists is less the efficient personal self-expression, but rather the approach of offering their own practices for participation to interested people of all backgrounds and age groups. The theorist Andreas Spiegl speaks in this sense of the "gift of giving".
As a temporary art collective, artists Anna Khodorkovskaya, Barbara Eichhorn, and Joanna Zabielska develop a mobile assemblage for public space within which their diverse practices and disciplines of drawing, sculptural work, performance, electronics, and sewing combine to create constantly reconnecting and evolving formal languages.
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At the center of the actions, which are composed as parades starting from a "home base" and are situated between narratives of the "Town Musicians of Bremen," "Pied Piper of Hamelin," or "Caravanserai", there is a sofa on the wheels that invites for artist talks as well as to take spontaneous group or family photos. The experts of everyday life also meet here to talk and discuss current topics in the neighborhood.
In the spirit of a "new ecology" the artists use materials from the streets or from local garbage collectors to create mobile sculptures on the wheels. Elements of the "throwaway society" are literally taken up and processed into new elements of art. From these mobile assemblages and vehicles emerge performative interventions in public space: processions, parades, art demos with things on wheels. The aim is always to produce unexpected meeting places between people, art and everyday life, to connect the known with the unknown.
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The "mobile art space" creates collective spaces of memory for all participants through various actions and also repeatedly communicates itself through the display and sharing of working processes. This invites the viewers to join in and become involved in the design processes themselves.
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Istanbul
The constantly growing (officially 15.5 / unofficially 20 million inhabitants) metropolis of Istanbul with rapidly changing lifestyles and consumption habits, as well as ongoing industrialization and urbanization, are leading to increasing quantities of waste that have to be collected, separated, economically recycled or disposed off. The growing mountains of waste are forcing to act.
SO FAR TILL NOW - SOFA(R) ON THE WAY draws attention to the value of our everyday objects and their recyclability, making trash the playful as well as critical centre of artistic engagement.
In order to avoid the one-sided view from the outside as much as possible, as a temporary artists' collective we are aiming to cooperate with the Istanbul association diyalog and their targeted connections to artists, district organizations and district offices.
Since 2006, diyalog has been committed to promoting exchange and cooperation in order to strengthen intercultural exchange, understanding and cultural dialogue. Special attention is given to overcoming borders both in culture between communities as well as nations.
The location for SO FAR TILL NOW - SOFA(R) ON THE WAY is the Kurtulus neighborhood. Kurtulus, in the past multiculturally populated with communities of Turks, Greeks, Jews and Armenians, is today mainly known as an entertainment district with a lively nightlife. Beyond the Muallim Naci Cd. the Mahalle has more of a small-town appearance, narrow streets, small buildings with a variety of small handicraft stores, coffee and tea houses.
SO FAR TILL NOW - SOFA(R) ON THE WAY sketches a poetic map and opens an access to the forms of contemporary art and their mediation in everyday situations to people in Istanbul. The project plays with the awareness of more ecological approaches, with the focus on the value of our everyday objects and their recyclability, and makes garbage the playful center of artistic exploration.
Summary
As a temporary art collective, the artists Anna Khodorkovskaya, Barbara Eichhorn and Joanna Zabielska develop a mobile assemblage on wheels as a performative intervention in public space in Istanbul. In the spirit of a "new ecology," the focus of the mobile intervention is on the value of our everyday objects and their recyclability, making trash the playful center of artistic exploration. The artists mainly use materials from the street, donations from the neighborhood or from local garbage collecting points. Participatory work sessions and workshops, poetic vehicles, objects, and costumes are being built from them in public. Spontaneous interested individuals from the neighborhood as well as partners informed in advance are invited to join them. Artistic processions, parades and art demos are created from these sculptures on wheels, which are pushed and pulled through selected routes of the neighborhood.
The mobile assemblage serves as a platform for performance, music, readings and film screenings. The aim is always to produce meeting spaces and opportunities between people, art and everyday life and to connect the familiar with the unfamiliar.
