Artist in Residence, Stockholm 16 September 2024 – 15 November 2024

Göksu Kunak (Ankara, 1985) is an artist, researcher, and writer based in Berlin. Göksu’s interest lies in chronopolitics and hybrid texts that deal with the performative lingo(s) of contemporary lifestyles as well as non-Western/unorthodox dramaturgies. Influenced by Arabesque culture and late modernities, clichés, and the lingo of the superficial, Göksu imagines new situations out of real encounters that point out the problematics of hetero-patriarchal structures. Orientalism, self-Orientalization (the perception of the ‘Easterner’, and how Easterners see themselves through this construction), as well as camouflage, self-censorship and science-fiction are also interests. Recently, Göksu has been working on score-based performances and installations that focus on simulacrum and muscle as an object, body-as-sculpture.

Photo: Tomas Eyzaguirre

”Bygone Innocence”, Göksu Kunak Installation.

During their IASPIS residency, Göksu will focus on a research called Sun & Steel/REMAKE. This research will focus on the formation of the body in the Turkish modernisation, as well as the shift in the neoliberal era. The Security Monument from the capital Ankara, and a magazine called Yeni Adam (The New Man) will be the anchors, while moving to the areas of self-mutation, bodybuilding and muscle as an object—as the muscularity of a body was the prominent phenomenon in this period. Recently, bodybuilding and bimbofication/plastic surgery have risen as symbolic representations akin to modernist monuments in Turkey, embodying a mix of positive and negative narratives. The history of morphing and forming the body, and the neoliberal shift will be tackled not only as a criticism but also as a phenomenon with complex layers, sometimes as an inevitable admiration.

Göksu was nominated for The Dieter-Ruckhaberle-Förderpreis and was one of the winners of Live Works Prize Vol. 8 at Centrale Fies with their piece Cabaret Portrait: Döner Blackout III. In 2023, funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds and Freischwimmen Platform, they performed Ajaib Mahluqat (Acayip Mahlukat), co-produced by Sophiensaele Theater Berlin. With the support of the Berlin Senate and Sophiensaele Theater, they made the piece AN(A)KARA in 2021. Previously, they exhibited and performed at Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Performa Biennial NYC, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Number1MainRoad, De Singel Arts Center Antwerp, Kaaitheather Brussels, Pilevneli Gallery Istanbul, Next Waves Theater Volksbühne, Akademie der Künste, Bergen Assembly´s The Parliament of Bodies.