A ROOM OF OUR OWN

An Exhibition on Motherhood, 

Womanhood and Feminine 

Cycles: A Room of Our Own

@ARK Kültür

Curator: Arzu Yayıntaş, Concept development and exhibition design: Güneş Terkol and Sevil Tunaboylu,

A Room of our Own” exhibition brings together 23 artists and houses works from different disciplines such as painting, drawing, video, photography, sculpture, installation, illustration and performance. Handling topics of fertility, motherhood and feminine cycles from women’s perspective, the exhibition questions the prejudices and cliches on these topics and aims to review and reconsider them together with the spectator while sharing experiences.

The artists of the exhibition in alphabetic order are; Ada Tuncer, Arzu Arbak , Arzu Yayıntaş, Ecem Yerman, Ece Eldek, Elif Varol Ergen, Fatoş Irwen, Gizem Aksu, Gökçe Deniz Balkan, Güneş Terkol, Işıl Eğrikavuk, Merve Çanakçı, Nancy Atakan, Neriman Polat, Nurcan Gündoğan, Oda Projesi, Özgül Arslan, Peri Demirbaş, Seçil Yersel, Sena Başöz, Sevil Tunaboylu, Sezgi Abalı and Yasemin Nur.

 “A Room of our Own” exhibition is a continuation of the workshops on motherhood and fertility run by Arzu Yayıntaş and Güneş Terkol since 2015. Those workshops started as a reaction to the approach of those in power and the media standardising motherhood, oversimplifying child care, ignoring the fact that motherhood is an issue of choice and the use of motherhood as a repression mechanism on women. In this exhibition, the concept expanded containing the feminine cycles.

The curator of the exhibition Arzu Yayıntaş worked together with Güneş Terkol and Sevil Tunaboylu in the concept development and the exhibition design process. The trio prepared a questionnaire on fertility and feminine cycles (the birth of a woman, menstruation, giving birth, miscarriage, abortion, biological clock and menopause) under 7 titles and made an open call to artists willing to work with these concepts through sharing the questionnaire. As a response to this open call, some artists proposed to make new work for this exhibition while others proposed readily available work from their archives that they did not have the opportunity to exhibit before.  An approach that is different from classical authoritarian curatorship, more open to the collaboration and contribution of artists willing to work in this field was taken with the open call made through the questionnaire and the exhibition space was organised as a common space with a more equalitarian and embracing attitude.

The Motley Jitters, Artists' Publication, ed. of 3

Contrary to the ruling power’s standardising discourse, the exhibition aims to underline the fact that motherhood and womanhood experience has many different forms and every woman has much to share on fertility and feminine cycles, make more experiences visible and strengthen women solidarity.

Moon Tent, Arzu Yayıntaş, Güneş Terkol, Sevil Tunaboylu

Creeper, oin on canvas, 50x70 cm