The opening will take place Friday, March 15th, 18h-21h
Closing & artist talk: Saturday, March 30th, 16h-18h
Visiting days and hours: Friday, Saturday, 14h-18h and by appointment.

Artist Ulufer Çelik’s first solo exhibition Opiomarital, focuses on healing in the realm of an aching heart. By upcycling the residues of ceremonies, rituals, fights and habits of romance, the work recalibrates heartache in what the artist calls “a time of narcissistic nations.” Through opium and henna plants’ guidance the artist explores the multilayered facets of pain, soothing and celebration.

Opiomarital is the third and final part of On Mending, a three part project that explores the theme of healing as a collective experience or practice. The works in the programme explore alternatives to healing by encounters with plants, migration histories and art therapy. As all three projects that are part of On Mending deal with pain, trauma and grief, they point to relevant questions about how to occupy uncomfortable situations rather than deny their existence.

Ulufer Çelik (b. 1992, Antalya/ Turkey) is an artist, who lives and works in Rotterdam, Netherlands. She completed her studies in the MA Art Praxis program at the Dutch Art Institute in 2018. Her artistic practice explores the potentialities of narrative and myth-making, that is expressed through moving image, poetry, drawing, sound and performance. In her work, she constructs multi-layered planes through a non-linear perception of time. She searches for queer, immigrant, feminist ways of making and thinking with the archeological, spiritual and spatial traces of memory. She is a member of Eat-House Collective, W1555 Artist Community and a resident at Putsebocht 3. Her work has been exhibited in several shows at Growing Space, Corridor Project Space, Are Projects, Rib, State of Concept, Yellow Brick Gallery, Litost Gallery, Institute for Provocation, Belmacz Gallery and Wuerttembergischer Kunstverein.

Supported by Gemeente Rotterdam and Mondriaan Fonds.
Photos Jake Caleb.

~~~~Follow the link below to listen to Ulufer Çelik in conversation with Hedvig Koertz~~~~


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