Devir
Galeri 5, Istanbul, 2020
Art Consultant (Programming, Curating, and Coordination), 2015–2020

Devir is a year-long, process-based exhibition and residency project initiated and curated by Gizem Karakas at Galeri 5, a non-profit art space located within an office building in Ümraniye, Istanbul. Developed in response to the limited interaction between exhibitions and their primary audience, the employees of the building, the project sought to create conditions for encounter between artistic production and its immediate context.

Rather than conceiving the exhibition as a fixed display, Devir was structured as an evolving, collective process. Each month, a different artist was invited to use the exhibition space as a studio, producing site-specific work while engaging with the space, its users, and the traces left by previous participants. The selection of artists followed a relay system: each invited artist nominated the next, establishing a chain of transmission that shaped the project over time.

Drawing on the logic of the Surrealist game Exquisite Corpse, Devir was conceived as a set of rules rather than a predefined curatorial narrative. The project foregrounded unpredictability, collaboration, and process, allowing the exhibition to emerge through successive gestures rather than a singular authorial vision. In this context, Karakas positioned herself less as a curator than as a facilitator or “game-setter,” defining the framework within which the artists operated.

Over the course of twelve months, the exhibition space functioned as an open studio, where artistic production became visible and accessible. Artists were invited to spend time in the space, develop their work in situ, and remain attentive to both the environment and the works preceding their own. This structure fostered a cumulative and relational form of exhibition-making, where each contribution both responded to and transformed the existing context.

The title Devir—meaning both “transfer” and “era” in Turkish—refers to this system of succession while also evoking a broader condition of contemporary cultural production: one grounded in collaboration, shared authorship, and process-oriented practices. Moving away from outcome-driven exhibition formats, the project proposed a mode of working based on continuity, exchange, and coexistence.

Participating artists included Merve Ünsal, Lara Ögel, Sena Başöz, Merve Ertufan, Burcu Yağcıoğlu, Sibel Horada, Gül Ilgaz, Melis Bilgin, Özgür Demirci, Ayşe İdil İdil, Burak Kabadayı, and Berkay Tuncay.