Kıymet Daştan

Beirut Art Center | Lebanon

SAHA supports Kıymet Daştan’s new project in Lebanon. Kıymet Daştan is invited to the collective exhibition titled A return of the sun, held at Beirut Art Center, 18 May – 16 September 2023. The exhibition challenges given forms of violence in our environments and how to recognise/see/sense them. How we account for these delayed effects so they don’t remain an omnipresent agent of destruction and loss of life? Who can bear witness to these temporal and spatial calamities and how do we deploy this insight into present and future conditions. Daştan’s Oblivion Stone Series takes as its starting point the often non-visible precious minerals found in digital media that have become infrastructural in storing our memories and data. Consisting of custom made brass assemblags that carry molded rocks and crystals, the whole installation is constructed solely by heat.

Kıymet Daştan’s (1980, Istanbul) experiments with form, loaded with conceptual projections, generate questions about memory, legacy and social roles while exploring the poetic horizons of materials. Producing and according to a material presence is a way of thinking for the artist. In addition to her individual work, Daştan has also provided design, production, and project development support to realize artists’ projects. Daştan continues her artistic work in her studio in Istanbul.

About Beirut Art Center

Beirut Art Center (BAC) is a non-profit association, space, and platform dedicated to art research and cultural practices in Beirut, Lebanon. Since opening in 2009, BAC has facilitated the creation and realization of projects as well as interactions between local and international cultural initiatives in a space that is open and active all year long.