Toki and Happiness, Still from the video, 2009, Istanbul
Thanks to; Celenk Bafra, Can Candan, Raf Deckers, Emre Huner, Ran Van Ongevalle, Merve Sendil, Anne Vanderelst.
ŠElmas Deniz
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Elmas Deniz is primarily interested in the discursive quality of contemporary art practice rather than any formalistic representation. This is why, her choice of media varies from one project to another utilizing a range of diversity such as installation, video, sculpture, performance, writing and drawings. Dealing with global power structures, democracy, state-control, urbanism, and globalization, she developes a personal perspecive in each case, and creates a critical eye on the perception of the subject matter, rather than engrossing it or representing a position.
Through her writing, and her artistic practice Deniz is interested in the (im)possibilities of the problematic of representation. Even she is dealing with the reflections of the social, economic and the political aspects of our reality, the fictional/narrative quality is always an important element of her work, and the modernist tradition of literature have conceptually influenced some of her pieces such as "Little Fake House", "You, Fool and Bean". Consisting of a series of drawing, video, social interventions, and a work in progress publication, her recent project "Toki and Happiness" deals with the issue of social housing in Turkey, whereas her video "The man who wants to be tourist" is filmed in Copenhagen, and mainly interested in the comparison between the urban profiles of a tourist and a migrant regarding their public visibility.
Borrowing the language of encyclopedic representation, Elmas Deniz has been producing a series of drawings for a while via developing a collection of ready-made images. Recently -from this series, an astronaut figure that also looks like a fetus (referring to the euphoria of birth), was exhibited at the exhibition project "There is no audience!" at Montehermoso, Spain, 2009 (Curator Grant 2009) in coincided with the 40th anniversary of the first step on the moon (1969).
Her artistic research and practice have ben part of some pioneer artist-initiated orgazanizations and structures, or have collaborated with them such as K2 Art Center, Altı Aylık, Apartman Projesi etc.
