Banu Cennetoğlu

Chisenhale Gallery presents the first solo exhibition in a UK institution and a major new commission by Istanbul-based artist Banu Cennetoğlu.

Cennetoğlu’s work incorporates methods of mapping, collecting and archiving in order to question and challenge the politics of memory, as well as the distribution and consumption of information. For her commission at Chisenhale Gallery, Cennetoğlu has produced a new moving image installation presented in the gallery’s exhibition hall.

The new multi-titled moving image work maps Cennetoğlu’s archive of digital images and videos sourced from various devices, including her mobile phones, computers, cameras and external hard drives. Starting on June 10, 2006 and ending on March 21, 2018, the work presents a continuous stream of unedited content, ordered in a chronological format. The work is 128 hours and 22 minutes in duration, and each day the gallery is open a new 6 hour-long file is presented.

The work traces over a decade of personal, social and political change from the banality of life’s small moments, to the birth of Cennetoğlu’s daughter, to documentation of her artistic practice, to numerous protests, ceremonies and cemeteries. In presenting an accumulation of digital content sourced over the past ten years, the work also documents changes in image production and circulation.

In conjunction with her installation at the gallery Cennetoğlu also facilitated the distribution of The List in The Guardian newspaper, in print and online on 20 June 2018, World Refugee Day. Compiled and updated each year by UNITED for Intercultural Action, an anti-discrimination network of 550 organisations in 48 countries, The List traces information relating to the deaths of 34,361 refugees and migrants who have lost their lives within, or on the borders of Europe since 1993 (documented as of May 5, 2018). Since 2007, in collaboration with art workers and institutions, Cennetoğlu has facilitated updated versions of The List using public spaces such as billboards, transport networks and newspapers. This edition of The List is produced by Chisenhale Gallery and Liverpool Biennial. 

Produced in parallel with one another, both Cennetoğlu’s sustained facilitation of The List and her artwork presented at Chisenhale Gallery, examine intimate and shared experiences of life and death and the responsibility inherent in recording these experiences. Made in response to The List’s attempt to record profound loss Cennetoğlu’s new moving image work inverts attention to her own subjectivity and to the impossibility of complete categorisation of one’s own, and others’, lives. Cennetoğlu’s commission at Chisenhale Gallery invites audiences to consider their own relationship to memory, loss, ownership and belonging.

Cennetoğlu’s exhibition continues Chisenhale Gallery’s programme for 2018, which includes major new commissions by artists Lydia Ourahmane, Paul Maheke and Lawrence Abu Hamdan. Through her work, Cennetoğlu raises complex questions concerning the effects of geographic borders on bodies and how systems of governance influence everyday experience, themes that recur throughout Chisenhale Gallery’s programme for 2018. As part of the commissioning process, discursive events are programmed in collaboration with each artist, and contribute to the organisation’s Engagement Programme of public talks and events held at the gallery and offsite.

Exhibition events

Banu Cennetoğlu in conversation with Negar Azimi
July 10, 7pm
Banu Cennetoğlu is joined in conversation with Negar Azimi to discuss her new exhibition and The List. Negar Azimi is a writer and Senior Editor at Bidoun, a magazine and curatorial platform.

Early Morning Viewing
July 19, 9–10:30am
An early morning viewing of Banu Cennetoğlu’s exhibition, with an introduction to the work by Amrita Dhallu, Curatorial Assistant: Commissions at Chisenhale Gallery.

Discussion with Liz Fekete and Mark Rice-Oxley
July 23, 7pm
Liz Fekete, Director of the Institute of Race Relations, and Mark Rice-Oxley, Head of The Guardian’s special projects, discuss the European migration crisis using The List as a source document.

Talk with Isobel Harbison
August 2, 7pm
Writer Isobel Harbison gives a talk in response to Banu Cennetoğlu’s new moving image work presented in the gallery, exploring digital image production and Cennetoğlu’s use of indexing.

This event is programmed in association with First Thursdays, when galleries across East London remain open until 9pm on the first Thursday of each month. 

Reading Group with Lizzie Homersham and Ed Luker
August 18, 12–6pm
Writers and editors, Lizzie Homersham and Ed Luker lead a reading and discussion group on The List.

Events are free to attend, unless otherwise stated, but booking is strongly advised. Please visit chisenhale.eventbrite.co.uk or ask at the front desk to make a reservation.

Biography
Banu Cennetoğlu (b. 1970, Ankara, Turkey) lives and works in Istanbul. Previous solo exhibitions include: Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2015); Gentle Madness, Rodeo, London (2014); Banu Bar Mixt, Salonul de proiecte, Bucharest (2013); and Guilty feet have got no rhythm., Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2011). Selected group exhibitions include: Stories of Almost Everyone, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); documenta (14), Athens and Kassel; The Restless Earth, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Milan (both 2017); 10th Gwangju Biennale (2014); Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010); 53rd Venice Biennale/Pavilion of Turkey (2009); 3rd Berlin Biennale (2008); and 1st Athens Biennale and 10th Istanbul Biennale (both 2007).      

Lead Supporters: Shane Akeroyd and SAHA – Supporting Contemporary Art from Turkey.

Banu Cennetoğlu’s exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery is supported by Haro and Bilge Cumbusyan and Yana and Stephen Peel. With additional support from the High Commission of Canada and the Banu Cennetoğlu Supporters Circle. With thanks to Rodeo, London/Piraeus.

This edition of The List is produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London and Liverpool Biennial, and printed and distributed by The Guardian.

Chisenhale Gallery’s Commissions Programme 2017-19 is supported by the LUMA Foundation.

Chisenhale Gallery’s Curatorial Trainee Programme 2016-18 is supported by Sirine and Ahmad Abu Ghazaleh.

Chisenhale Gallery’s Engagement Programme 2018 is supported by the Engagement Programme Supporters Circle. 

Chisenhale Gallery
Registered charity number 1026175