Review: Seher Uysal – Exchanges in Art Education
Ambivalence Project
16/07/2017
When I was a Proficiency of Art student(Ph.D equivalent in Turkey) in the year 2006 with Assist. Prof. Mürteza Fidan who I worked with during my Bachelors and Masters education, we worked on a project titled Ambivalence Dinner along with other bachelors, masters and proficiency of arts students. The conceptual framework was written by our professor himself. To be involved in such a collective project from an early phase of planning to exhibiting was exciting and important but at the same time creating a finished work in a state institution was really hard.
The main element that distinguishes Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts from the other educational institutions in Turkey; is that it has been able to a certain extent carry interdisciplinarity in art education. This institution, which is an important contributor to the formation of contemporary art in Turkey especially in the 90’s, carried out a number of activities including Corridor Events with a very high number of participants and Youth Activities Exhibitions which was open to all art students around the country.
When I was a student, the Ambivalence Dinner project, which took place at the Mürteza Fidan Studio was one of the most significant assignments we had. The practice of producing an art object in relation to a direct concept, the concept of the objects being edible- consumable, the performance achieved on the relationship between the act of eating and food, the process of documentation, and the subsequent transformation of the visual display into a temporary exhibition with all the visual documents… It was a multi-layered and inclusive project, and it was also an innovative and experimental production process in the context of art production in Turkey.
The basic process for the Ambivalence Dinner project was as follows: The context of the exhibition;
- Preparation of conceptual framework text and press bulletin
- Work on conceptual content and research
- Development of proposals for the project
- Production phase
- Preparation of the text to be realized during performance
- Documentation of the performance process
- Exhibition design and application.
The greatest feature of the project in terms of art education was that it was difficult and risky to find such contemporary art spaces. But it carried the spirit of its time; it was multi-layered and it had a way of transforming students into participants. It was a project that offered collective work practice and was professionally qualified and original. In this context, as a candidate artist, without any academic hierarchy the Ambivalence Dinner was a part of the training program and a workshop for Mürteza Fidan studio, as well as a program that offers suggestions in the context of production practice in Turkey. It provided students with experiences in all stages of making a project in order to develop as an artist.
In this sense, it is possible to see the project as a proposal which answers the educational problems to a certain extent, especially when the art faculties inadequacies in preparing the students to local and international art environments are considered in Turkey after the graduation and more importantly during the academic education process.
Of course, if such projects implemented in this context were to be applied systematically and sustainably, there may be better results in educational and artistic terms in the future.
Çağrı Saray
1979 born in Istanbul, lives and works in İstanbul. Assoc. Prof. in Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts. 10 Solo Exhibitions since 2001 including “Diminishing Time” (2015, Primary Greek School, İstanbul, Turkey), “Grey Corridor” (2013, Cite Internationale Des Arts, Paris, France), “4/12: Topography of a House” (2011, Daire Gallery, İstanbul, Turkey), “Memory Boxes-1” (2001, Atatürk Library, İstanbul, Turkey).
Selected Group Exhibitions among 80 local and international exhibitions “Raptures and Convergences” (2014, Kuad Gallery, İstanbul, Turkey), “3rd International Çanakkale Biennial” (2012, Çanakkale, Turkey), “Where Fire Has Struck” (2011, Depo, İstanbul, Turkey).