Güneş Terkol: Epipe / Onur Gökmen: Subsoil

The projects supported by the Salt Artistic Research and Production Grant Program, in collaboration with the BBVA Foundation, are presented at Salt Galata.

Epipe by Güneş Terkol
Epipe is the culmination of an oral history and archival research project that Güneş Terkol has been working on with her mother, Elmira Terkol, since 2002. The artist brings together earlier and newly produced works with materials distilled from this research, tracing the multi-stage migration of the Kazan Tatars from Russia to China and eventually to Türkiye. Combining drawing, animation, and stitching, she develops a layered audio-visual narrative around migration routes, family recollections, and exchanges across geographies and generations.

During the preparations for the exhibition, a series of research trips took place, including visits to the Forum of Tatar Women in Kazan and the Sabantuy Festival in Eskişehir. These encounters involved listening to numerous migration stories, conducting video interviews, and bringing family heirlooms out of chests. The final stage of the research was a sewing workshop held at the Kazan Culture and Solidarity Association in Ankara. As in other workshops led by the artist with women across different countries, this process offered space for personal stories to take shape within a collective narrative. Participants’ reflections on migration, belonging, and family memory were woven into fabrics and transformed into a banner, accompanied by traditional Tatar songs. 

Epipe takes its name from a well-known Tatar folk song that depicts a dancing female figure, evoking both the memory and vitality of a community that has witnessed several historical shifts, from wars and occupations to economic crises and regime changes. Forming a repertoire of intergenerational experience, labor, and resilience, the exhibition is on view at Salt Galata until March 8.

Subsoil by Onur Gökmen
Onur Gökmen’s exhibition Subsoil revisits a largely overlooked episode in the environmental and institutional history of Türkiye: the detection of radioactive contamination in Black Sea tea following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. 

In the aftermath of the nuclear fallout, a team of scientists at Middle East Technical University—including the artist’s parents, chemists İnci and Ali Gökmen—conducted research to measure radiation levels in tea produced in the Black Sea region. Their findings were compiled in a report and submitted to the relevant authorities. Official statements, however, minimized the extent of the contamination, reflecting concerns over economic, political, and social stability. Amid issues of public health and accountability, the METU report was eventually leaked to the media. Press coverage alternated between silencing and exposure, translating the issue into mediatized images and headlines that continue to linger in collective memory. While this coverage generated a degree of public awareness, institutional responses remained largely unchanged, even as contaminated tea stayed in circulation.

Combining fiction and documentary, Subsoil stages a dialogue between narrative and evidence. It explores how scientific findings are negotiated, obscured, or dismissed within state institutions, exposing contradictions between empirical knowledge and official accounts. Tracing the movement of radiation through natural and institutional systems, the exhibition highlights how environmental harm—though invisible and slow—can reshape public health, policy, and collective memory. The exhibition will be on view at Salt Galata from April 1 to May 3.

Both exhibitions are presented as part of the second edition of the Salt Artistic Research and Production Grant Program, organized in collaboration with the BBVA Foundation. For more information: saltonline.org. 

Founded in 2011 by Garanti BBVA, Salt is a not-for-profit cultural institution engaging in research, exhibitions, publications, web projects, and public programs at the intersections of visual practices, the built environment, social life, and economic history.

The BBVA Foundation, as the corporate social responsibility of the BBVA Group, is committed to advancing society by promoting and disseminating knowledge through research-based, artistic, cultural, and scientific projects.