In der Galerie 3000 im Mai 2017
“Our project consists of a shared theme on immigration and how memory can function under the circumstances provoked by immigration. This endeavor requires us to deal with time, storytelling, translation, transmission of stories among generations and questions around oral history. We present in this cabinet setup at Galerie3000 our methods while working in different contexts given the specific geographical and historical conditions that are part of our experiences.”
Text zur Ausstellung als PDF-Datei
REVISIT Katerina Samara Nihan Somay Tracy Lim 24.05-24.06.17 Galerie 3000 Bern
Our project consists of a shared theme on immigration and how memory can function under the circumstances provoked by immigration. This endeavor requires us to deal with time, storytelling, translation, transmission of stories among generations and questions around oral history. We present in this cabinet setup at Galerie3000 our methods while working in different contexts given the specific geographical and historical conditions that are part of our experiences.
We began to talk about making a group presentation on this subject more than a year ago. Leaving one’s homeland to live in another country is a phenomenon with transformative effects that take generations-long confrontation and understanding processes. We found ourselves on a common ground with similar positions in relation to our histories in the sense that in our generation we may have reached a certain distance with these moments from our past long enough to finally go back and reflect upon them.
Katerina Samara is an artist from Greece, currently living in Sion, Switzerland. Her project Five Senses addresses the physical ways in which memory can be activated. She is occupied with the questions revolving around the functional mechanisms of memory. How does our body remember? Do we have control over what we remember? How is the relationship between memory and senses constructed? She presents five books to the visitors and invites them to participate in searching for answers. A notebook to be read. A flipping book to listen to the sound it makes. A closed book to be smelled. A book of tissues to be touched. A book of memories connected to food stories to drool over them.
In another shelf, Tracy Lim is presenting her work Lexington Avenue, 56 Street. The 3D viewers are telling visual stories from the memories of Korean illegal immigrants whom the artist met in New York, USA. The artist made a trip to New York for revisiting the sites from her childhood. There, she observed how the town of Korean district has been enlarged through years, how Korean immigrants settled down geographically in the city in comparison with her memories of these places. Each clicker has revitalized the undocumented stories with the use of photos and text which also demonstrate the dimension of forgetfulness. As far as the memories remain intact, will the stories and the emotions captured in the clickers stay alive?
The books on another shelf carry a translated part from Kalan*, a prose poetry written by Leylâ Erbil (1931-2013). They are sent to the cabinet from Istanbul which is the bitter and healing source of this narrative woven with layers of lost life that come to the surface through stream of consciousness, poetry and acts of remembrance on paper. Erbil looked at the moments of social disintegration without moving her eyes elsewhere; that insistence is transmitted to us in a breath through her character’s confrontations. The memories of childhood shaped amidst the brutal reformation of people’s histories, from deportation to population exchanges, are central to the narrator’s reckoning. The selection of pages is translated by Nihan Somay who wished to extend her time with this uncompromising writer through the labor of words in an effort to research limits and challenges of cooperation on a ground where past and present are in a whirlwind of witnessing and recalling.
* First published in 2011 by İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları (Turkey)
Katerina Samara, born in Larissa, Greece in 1988. She graduated from Photography and Audiovisual Art Department of Technological Educational Institute of Athens in 2012 and she completed her Masters of Art in Public Spheres at Ecole Cantonale d’ Art du Valais in Sierre in 2014 for which she also received the prize of the city of Sierre 2014. She works with photography, video but also installations. She is interested in artistic research, writing and collaboration. After her residency at “Atelier Tremplin”, supported by BEA Foundation for young artists, she continues her research project about family and memory in the Artistic and Cultural Centre of Sion “Ferme-Asile”. She participated to collective and solo exhibitions in Switzerland and Greece. Her works are published in the catalog of the exhibition “Show Shown Showed” and that of the Trienalle of Valais. She lives and works between Sion, Switzerland and Athens, Greece. (www.katerinasamara.com)
Tracy Lim, born in New York City, United States of America in 1986. She graduated from Suwon University’s Asian Fine Arts Department in Seoul, South Korea in 2012 and she completed her degree at Master of Arts in Public Spheres at Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais in Sierre 2014. She has received a prize „Prix fondation Bea pour jeunes artistes“. She works with drawing, painting but also installations. Tracy has participated in exhibitions in Switzerland: Kunstmuseum Thun, Heritage in Thun, Barbershop in Turtmann, The Sheperd box/Five solo’s, The Channels of Chippis in Susten, Les Vétérans in Chippis, Show Showed Shown in Trienalle of Valais. She currently lives and works in Bex, Switzerland. (tracyeungeelim86@gmail.com)
Nihan Somay, born in Istanbul, Turkey in 1988. She obtained her BA degree at Sabanci University’s Visual Arts Department in 2011, and her MA degree as Master of Arts in Public Spheres at Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais (Switzerland). She is a member of artists‘ collective KABA HAT and a publication cooperative BAÇOY KOOP. She works with installations that deal with language, narration, publication, archival material and display/distribution elements along with video and performance. She participated in exhibitions and presentations in DEPO, 5533, Heidelberg Kunstverein, MAXXX, USEGO, Plattform15, Kunstmuseum Thun, Apartment Project, Galerie im Turm, REDCAT, Trussardi Foundation, Istituto Svizzero. (nihansomay@gmail.com)
Bilder der Ausstellung (links und rechts ins Bild klicken für weitere Bilder)
