ARTS AND CULTURE
Duygu Demir received her BA in Art History and Visual Arts from Columbia University. She decided to become a curator in her senior year: “When I listened to curator Massimiliano Gioni, who described the Berlin Biennial he had curated in detail, I knew that this was what I wanted to do.” Since then, Demir has worked on numerous exhibitions as a programmer for SALT, including retrospectives and a group show titled I Decided not to Save the World. She continues her career as an independent curator.
Gözde İlkin's solo exhibition Entrusted Ground at artSümer in September-November 2022 illustrates Demir’s curatorial approach: “The gallerist Aslı Sümer encouraged me to work with the artist. Having seen some of Gözde's recent experimentation with dancer Aslı Bülbül, I had the idea to expand her usually two-dimensional fabric works into three dimensions. We conceived of the exhibition as a stage, with works to be activated through movement. The process became collaborative; we worked with a choreographer, dancer and a musician. The exhibition and the performance together revolve around the four elements of air, water, fire and earth. Activating all senses, Entrusted Ground in essence proposes a mental and physical perambulation through a landscape that theorist Donna Haraway describes as ‘natureculture.’”
Demir views her RC experience as having taught her not to approach life purely pragmatically, but to take pleasure in intellectual and artistic pursuits for the sake of them: “I came to value being a thinker more than a doer while at RC.”
Published December 2022
