The Gorki Kiosk is opening up its series of 5. Berliner Herbstsalon 2021 with a solo exhibition of the Kurdish artist, journalist and activist Zehra Doğan. The selection exhibited in the show is composed of paintings, drawings and journals Doğan produced during her three-year-long imprisonment in Turkey. Having been convicted on charges of disseminating »terrorist propaganda«, for a single painting she shared on social media, Doğan joined the collective spirit of resistance she found in the prison and turned the imposed conditions of her confinement into a boundless productivity. Due to the prison administrations` harsh restrictions and lack of any material for artistic practice, she had to improvise with whatever she found inside. Employing the fabric of the clothes that her mother kept bringing during her visits, large envelopes and empty letter pages sent by Naz Öke and other friends, leftover food, the colour of ground spices and her menstrual blood, Doğan's works display her resilience against patriarchal and political pressure and the severe conditions of confinement. The journals and collectively produced and handwritten newspapers included in the exhibition reveal Doğan’s journalistic engagement and her assumption of the role of the witness by chronicling the absurdities of the prison procedures, unjust and chauvinist regulations of the Turkish state, verbal and physical assaults and the consequent acts of solidarity and defiance among the inmates.
Open from 2/June
The 5. Berliner Herbstsalon 2021 – 2022 presents stronger still. exhibition – installation – talks, a project encompassing the prison no. 5 exhibition with works by Zehra Doğan, the SİLİVRİ. prison of thought and museum of small things installations, both curated by Can Dündar, and the witness exhibition with works by Timur Çelik. stronger still was conceived on the occasion of Re:Writing the Future by Allianz Kulturstiftung.
prison no. 5 within the framework of the Berliner Herbstsalon, receives financial support from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
