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    VOLKAN ASLAN

    Volkan Aslan’s recent practice is influenced by both his recollections, as well as his impressions of the malleability of our perception of time.

    These memories, half remembered, half forgotten, draw him to certain objects he comes across in his day-to-day life that recall his past. He playfully manipulates them to form surreal constructions that fuse his personal associations with new and unexpected interpretations.

    Aslan’s three-channel video Home Sweet Home (2017) was shown at 15th Istanbul Biennial commissioned by Biennial curators Elmgreen & Dragset. With his three-channel video installation, Volkan Aslan questions the boundaries between the sedentary and the nomadic, the indoor and the outdoor, the safe and the unsafe situations, pointing out to the fragility of the current state of each and every one of us.

    Volkan Aslan is born in 1982 in Ankara. He studied Painting at the Mersin University Faculty of Fine Arts in 2005. He currently lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey.

    ENQUIRY

    1982, Lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey

    Education
    2005 Mersin University of Fine Arts Faculty, Painting Department, Mersin Turkey

    SOLO EXHIBITIONS

    2021
    SAĞLICAKLA KAL, SALT Galata, Istanbul, Turquie

    2019
    We forget because it works, Galerie PARIS – B, Paris, France

    2018
    Shoot Me! Don’t Turn Me Over!, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey

    2015
    The Perfect Day, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey

    2014
    A Day Not Yet Lived, Pi Artworks London, UK

    2013
    Don’t Forget to Remember, Arter – space for art, Istanbul, Turkey

    2011
    Volkan, Macka Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
    Unstable Repetitions, Pi Artworks Istanbul Istanbul, Turkey

    2010
    Those Who Wear the Same T-Shirt, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey

    2009
    Four, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey

    2008
    Concern, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey

    2007
    Volkan Aslan in Istanbul, Under Construction, Istanbul, Turkey

    SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

    2019

    A Confrontation of Ideals, An Ren Biennale, Anren, Sichuan, China
    What time is it? Arter Istanbul, Istanbul,Turkey
    A Pillar of Smoke, curated by Ilgın Deniz Akseloğlu and Yann Perreau Galerie PARIS-B, Paris, France

    2018

    Under the Radar 5533, curated by Kari Conte, International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, US

    A Pillar of Smoke, Arles International Photo Festival, France
    Home is Where the (He)art is, Galerie PARIS-B, Paris, France
    First Round, Carmikli Collection, Galata Greek School, Istanbul, Turkey

    2017
    15th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey
    Harbor, Istanbul Modern Museum, Istanbul, Turkey

    2016
    This One Is Smaller Than This One…Carte Blanche: Serkan Özkaya and Paulina Bebecka, Galerist, Istanbul, Turkey

    2015
    Istanbul. Passion, Joy, Fury, curated by Hou Hanru with Ceren Erdem, Elena Motisi and Donatella Saroli, MAXXI Museum, Rome, Italy

    2014
    The Moving Museum Istanbul Exhibition, Turkey
    Disquiet, curated by Nat Muller, Pi Artworks, Istanbul, Turkey

    2013
    Mom, am I barbarian, 13th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey

    2012
    Pi@ Q – Q Contemporary, Beirut, Lebanon

    2011
    Trade Routes, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
    If the Nature is Heaven, the City is Hell, CerModern, Ankara, Turkey

    2010
    Second Exhibition, Arter – space for art, Istanbul, Turkey
    When Ideas Become Crime, Depo, Istanbul, Turkey
    Floating Volumes, 5533, Istanbul, Turkey
    Floating Volumes, Frise, Hamburg, Germany
    Stuff and Nonsense, CerModern, Ankara, Istanbul

    2009
    Too Good to Be True, Delfina Foundation, London, UK
    Reciprocal Visit, Depo, Istanbul, Turkey
    A Question of Staging, Landscape Perspectives, Istanbul, Turkey
    Temporary Harassment, Istanbul 2010 Portable Art Project, Istanbul, Turkey
    Once Upon a Time, 5533, Istanbul, Turkey and Bethanien Kunstlerhaus, Berlin, Germany

    2008
    On Produceability, New Talents, Köln, Germany
    Save As, Contemporary Artists Exhibition, Triennale Bovisa Museum, Milano, Italy
    Concern, Atelierfrankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
    Cultural Jam, Weimar, Germany
    Accumulated: Put Aside, Left Aside, 5533, Istanbul, Turkey

    2007
    Art and Money, Siemens Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
    From Owner with View, Istanbul, Turkey
    The Most Curatorial Biennial of the Universe, Apex Art Center, New York, USA
    -X, Ankara, Turkey
    6th Korean-Turkish Exchange Exhibition, Pi Artworks Istanbul, Turkey
    Unfinished, BM Suma Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey

    2006
    Between Two Sides, Istanbul, Turkey
    So Far Away from Here, Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey

    2005
    Cultural Heritage, The Turkish-British Cultural Center, Ankara, Turkey
    Free Zone – Neutral Area, Roxy, Istanbul, Turkey
    Obsession, International Audio-Video Art Festival, Gallery X, Istanbul, Turkey
    24th Contemporary Artists Exhibition, Akbank Art, Istanbul, Turkey
    1st Electronic Art Festival, Centro Cultural Telemar, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

    2004
    New Proposals – New Propositions, Borusan Culture and Arts, Istanbul, Turkey

    2003
    Choose a Dog for Yourself and Bark, Adana and Mersin, Turkey

    2002
    3rd International Student Triennial, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

    RESIDENCIES

    2010
    Artist-to-Artist, Delfina Foundation, London, UK

    2008
    International Studio Program, ACC-Weimar, Germany

    PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

    Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, Ohio, USA
    Rodney D Lubeznik Collection, Chicago, USA
    Carmikli Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
    Eczacibasi Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
    Hitay Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
    Ozyegin University Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
    Vehbi Koç Foundation, Istanbul, Turkey

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    Volkan Aslan - Home Sweet Home

    Home Sweet Home
    Text by Pablo Larios for the 15th Istanbul Biennial

    Volkan Aslan’s video installation Home Sweet Home (2017) is a meditative take on realities of displacement. The work commemorates individuals forced to make long journeys, such as migrants or those who have suf- fered a loss of home. A starting point for the work is a hybrid boat-home structure found commonly in poor areas within large cities, and used to relocate homes through bodies of water. Aslan’s video depicts this iconic image of tragic human itinerancy: the boat as an emblem of homes forcibly mobile.

    The piece employs imagery of water, journey-making. With disjunctions of time and perspetive, it is also a poetic parable of the way all people share in an i nerant and fragile human condi on, though we may experience this condition vastly differently. The work comprises a 3-channel video installation set within the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul. Scenes of domestic interiors and daily routines meld with views of landscapes of shores and city views. A woman sits on the front of a boat, looks out on to the water and observing the passing landscape. As the work develops, we see, with sweetly sad irony, that the three ‘places’ in the lm – which ini ally seemed dis nct – are in fact depic ons of di erent views onto realities that are actually more linked than they initially seemed.

    The film speaks to various forms of collapse: between transit, passage and home; between the architecture of inside and outside. It reflects medita vely on a world upended and inverted, in which seemingly everyone is on the move and in disarray. The work elicits how even tragedies far and away hit home. Even sites which initially seemed to be too far away from us to affect us are closer than we think, and neighbors we may not they are in fact right beside us.

    The work Home Sweet Home, 2017 by Volkan Aslan is commissioned by 15th Istanbul Biennial, curated by Elmgreen & Dragset