The “Crystal Clear” exhibition was in a position to see the sunshine of day on the Pera Museum regardless of the pandemic interval. The museum and the curator, Elena Sorokina, refused to desert their eco-responsible exhibition mission – already in preparation for two years -; they reinvented themselves and tailored to the interval of disaster, persevering with to work on the exhibition by reshaping their beginning factors of view, with out shifting away from the preliminary mission.
The exhibition dealt primarily with topics resembling transparency and opacity, soil and progress, taking as a place to begin the emblematic use of crystals. As Elena Sorokina places it, in her textual content accompanying the mission: “Starting from virtually good transparency to finish opacity, crystals have been utilized in all areas of human exercise, from science to magic, from know-how to therapeutic. Scientists typically describe crystals as ‘rising’, despite the fact that they aren’t alive to them. “
Elements of crystals are then examined with regard to the present scenario, the place uncommon metals are a part of each cell phone or laptop, carriers of social networks. “Immediately anybody can get details about something. Every part – and everybody – has turn out to be clear, uncovered and uncovered. But transparency has its darkish facet and may flip into opacity, with out whilst we discover it “, underlines Elena Sorokina.
The arrival of COVID-19 then remodeled and amplified these questions. The pandemic has sort of provided artists the chance to create new works, primarily based on new subjects and new questions. Notably, the way in which our world has modified since March 2020.
Bringing collectively the works of 20 artists from completely different horizons, notably French, the mission underlines the significance of ecology, and units up an eco-responsible exhibition. Its aim ? Restrict all potential unfavorable results of the mission on the surroundings, particularly the carbon footprint of the occasion itself, triggered amongst different issues by the sending of objects. Thus, the works within the exhibition had been created in a small ecosystem with the collaboration – for probably the most half – of native teams, avoiding transport as a lot as potential and utilizing recycled or recyclable supplies.
Elena Sorokina, who has lived and labored in Paris for years, is the curator of this exhibition; Lepetitjournal.com Istanbul was in a position to interview him to seek out out extra about his mission, the preparation and the course of the exhibition throughout a pandemic.
Marie Meister for Lepetitjournal.com from Istanbul: How did this chance to collaborate with the Pera Museum come about?
Elena Sorokina : It was Bige Örer (director of the Istanbul Biennale and modern artwork tasks on the İKSV) who invited me to mirror on a mission in Turkey, and particularly between Turkey and France. She got here to Paris about two years in the past to search for tasks, to satisfy curators, and that is how we began our trade. It was she who subsequently established contact with the Pera Museum. I then went to Istanbul to satisfy artists, and that is how the mission was born.
The place did you get the preliminary concept for this exhibition across the theme of crystal and the completely different notions of transparency / opacity, earth and progress?
The mission was born from my curiosity within the theme of minerals and the hyperlinks between natural matter and so-called non-organic matter. I then began to analysis the completely different makes use of of crystals which have been happening for millennia in numerous fields (magic, science, therapeutic care…) and the spectacular relationship between people and crystals. These questions associated to matter are necessary for artists, who view their works a bit like magical objects, in order that they take a look at the artwork object from an animist standpoint *. The mission was then born from this curiosity and that of the artists.
An animist is an individual who shares a perception, animism, that dwelling issues as a complete, together with objects, have a soul of their very own.
The pandemic has modified quite a lot of your preliminary questions across the topic, and has taken you and the artists on a a lot completely different path. Would you say that this allowed you to go additional in your questions and exhibition goals?
was introduced from the beginning on the Pera Museum, so lengthy earlier than the well being disaster. With the disaster, issues that appeared a bit summary, resembling the problem of drastically lowering journey, have clearly modified. From the beginning, I needed to scale back them significantly, and even utterly cancel the Paris-Istanbul return journeys for ecological causes. Then when the pandemic hit us this query grew to become apparent and the one factor to do. And at last, I feel that the mission was in a position to persist, to exist thanks to those structural rules of exhibition that I launched.
It’s true that the pandemic nonetheless put the brakes on the mission, however it was additionally a alternative. After a number of discussions with the museum and the artists, we determined to decelerate the mission and invite the artists to mirror on the scenario they’re going by way of. Particularly, we requested them whether or not or not they needed to incorporate present occasions of their works. It was necessary to offer them this chance to combine their emotions. To share their reactions, their experiences through the pandemic within the face of containment, the closure of borders, social networks, all these items which have emerged, and lots of extra.
Lastly, a number of works are the fruit of what the artists went by way of throughout this well being disaster between final April and the time of the opening of the exhibition, in December 2020.
Did you encounter any difficulties in establishing an eco-responsible exhibition?
We should salute the truth that the museum was very open to this mission – which works past the requirements for constructing an exhibition – as a result of it was carried out underneath an eco-responsible method.
It was troublesome, however rewarding; we needed an exhibition that’s sustainable, eco-responsible and doesn’t kill artwork, the place artwork can dwell and have all its house.
Immediately, many exhibitions cope with ecological points, however don’t go additional. Whereas it’s exactly essential to go additional and combine these rules into the group and the very functioning of an exhibition, to create precedents, to begin the change, even on a small scale.
Was this exhibition the primary of your journey underneath this method and with this ecological consciousness? On this direct means, sure. Nonetheless, I had already finished two exhibitions that might be described as precursors to this mission; an oil exhibition in 2007 for the Moscow Biennial entitled Petroliana and an exhibition on On the Mercy of Others: The Politics of Care
in 2004, as a part of Whitney ISP.
You can visit the exhibition until March 7 at Pera Museum
in Istanbul. The “Crystal Clear” exhibition received a good echo in theturkish press
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