End of 11th Term at SAHA Studio

SAHA Studio is presenting the new works developed by Eda Gecikmez, Yekateryna Grygorenko, Zeynep Gürler, Elif Öner and Furkan Öztekin, who took part in the 11^th term between January – June 2026, following the open call, to the public between 17–20 June 2026 at its program spaces located in İMÇ.

The five artists joining the program from Istanbul, Düzce, Ankara, and Tekirdağ were visited over the course of six months by 33 art professionals from Turkey and various other countries, including guests of the SAHA Curatorial Program, with whom they shared their practices and ongoing projects and received feedback. Alongside studio visits held throughout the period, the artists also had the opportunity to share the research and pre-production processes of their projects with visitors and receive feedback on their ongoing work through the Midterm Gathering, which took place on March 27 and 28, 2026.

SAHA Studio Open will be open to visitors from 15.00 on Wednesday, June 17. The event will be accompanied by talks, performances, and other events touching on the artists' production processes, alongside meetings and presentations. For more information, you can follow SAHA's website and social media accounts.

SAHA Studio Open

17 June, Wednesday
15.00 – 19.00   : General Visits
18.00 – 19.00   : Performative Presentation | Furkan Öztekin

18 June, Thursday
12.00 – 19.00   : General Visits
14.00 – 15.00   : Guided tour with the artists
18.00 – 19.00   : Talk | Zeynep Gürler & Esra Ece Kuleci

19 June, Friday
12.00 – 19.00   : General Visits
14.00 – 15.00   : Guided tour with the artists
18.00 – 19.00   : Talk | Elif Öner & Zehra Begüm Kışla

20 June, Saturday
12.00 – 19.00   : General Visits
16.00 – 17.00   : Talk | Eda Gecikmez & Aslıhan Demirtaş
18.00 – 19.00   : Talk | Yekateryna Grygorenko & Nergis Abıyeva

Eda Gecikmez concludes her six-month at SAHA Studio with two interrelated projects. Up until the Midterm Gathering, she worked on compiling the archive of of Kırmızı Kart (Red Card), a collective that fostered a space of solidarity and action against the inequalities, violence, and discrimination generated by the patriarchal system between 2011 and 2015. In the second half of the program, Gecikmez focuses on diverse forms of resistance that have emerged within the city. Bringing together painting, drawing, ceramics, and found objects in the studio, she invites viewers to reflect on ways of existing within a city at the center of constant change and transformation.

In her project titled How to Belong Here, Yekateryna Grygorenko explores the concepts of identity and belonging, placing her own personal experiences as a Ukrainian artist living in Turkey at the center of her work. The project adopts a humorous language to question the dominance that cultural identity and bureaucratic boundaries impose on the individual. Through flags, matryoshkas, and biometric "photographs" in the studio, it disrupts imposed perceptions of identity and culture, proposing an identity freed from bureaucratic definitions.

Zeynep Gürler continues working on Sediment, the second chapter of her project There, which she began developing in 2023 within the scope of SAHA Studio. Developed around Lake Efteni in Düzce, the project treats the lake as a spatial and sensory carrier of memory, interpreting the relationship between nature, humans, and non-human beings through it. Recurring images gathered during regular walks around Efteni are documented through photography, video, and drawing, and together with weaving works produced from these same walks, come together as an installation that spreads across the studio space.

Having long engaged with the concept of shadow in her practice, Elif Öner approaches shadow both as a mode of expression and a conceptual framework in her project The Play of Shadows. Focusing on the multilayered history of Unkapanı and its surroundings, the project examines the ruptures, discontinuities, and transitions between these layers through motifs. The video work, which also draws on Turkish shadow theater as a narrative tool, is accompanied by figures/tasvir (shadow puppets) produced by bringing together traditional shadow puppet making techniques with motifs from Ottoman gravestones and textile patterns found in İMÇ. 

Relapse is grounded in the archive of Ceyhan Fırat, an activist and artist with whom Furkan Öztekin collaborated between 2019 and 2021. Compiled throughout the residency period from libraries, print, and digital sources, the archive spreads across the space through various mediums including painting, photography, video, and publication. The phrase "ramshackle pink" used by Ceyhan to describe the sky in their autobiographical novel, runs through the studio as an ongoing color study rendered in paper installations.