Restrictions Of The Earth

The start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 marked a renewed reality of mass exodus and displacement. It is 2016, and this continues in vast numbers. However Due to entangled relations with neighbouring countries and clashing ideologies, it is the thousands of people seeking refuge from a war-torn setting, that find themselves in a harsh new bureaucratic system.

Every person is born into a place, they grow as the part of the state and inherit a culture distinguished by the several generations before them. Displacement is the sudden and brutal departure from the persons course of living. However, todays immigrant is not he or she whom lacks financial security; todays immigrant lacks the very right to survival. As john Berger has indicated, immigration is an essential way to stay alive in todays world. Wars cause to deprive people from their country of origin. Today there 51 million people completely homeless, they do no immigrate for wealth, but to stay alive.

As a result of obligation, characteristics of life on earth transform completely due to the dynamism of people between geography and culture. Sensory behaviour experiences change, and the sense of belonging is damaged or extinct. The yearning for a World without restrictions has become a struggle for survival in the form of physical and bureaucratic boundaries. Some succeed in crossing the border, it is here however that another merciless struggle begins, trying to reappropriate ones’ self in an alien society, wrestling with the will to pursue livelihood and resist sluggish bureaucracy, leaves the immigrant with a feeling of injustice, added to the heavy trauma they have experienced. This “rootlessness” triggers creativity in the mould of resistance and expressive forms. Borders begin to blur.

With regards to the process that has been brought to light, how do artists whom first hand have bared witness, experience the socio-dynamic shift? How do distance and coordinates, memory and historical perception, identification and habits, yearnings and hope, encapsulate themselves within artistic expression. Can art be a medium in which we shed light on the sense of belonging and crossed borders. How can we cherish the construction of a common life belonging to all, under the shadow of banishment? The exhibition ‘Restrictions of the Earth’ engages a group of artists whom have encountered various migratory routes, under the roof of Karşı Sanat.

Curators: Barış Seyitvan / Ezgi Bakçay

Bahram Hajou | Adel Dauood | Azad Nanakeli | Fatoş Irwen | Hiwa K | Khadija Baker | Osman Kader Ahmed | Parastou Forouhar | Şefik Özcan | Vooria Aria |Walid Siti | Niştiman Erdede | Murat Gök