13/12/2022 | Writer: Selma Koçak
“fawns, children, flowers, flames” exhibition, prepared within the scope of May 17 Association’s Climate Studies Program, opened on December 9, in Ankara, at Karikatür Atölyesi.
Photographs: Efekan Akyüz
May 17 Association’s “fawns, children, flowers, flames” exhibition, which focuses on the climate crisis and gender equality, opened on December 9, in Ankara, at Karikatür Atölyesi (Cartoon Atelier).
The exhibition, which includes the artworks of Zeynep Özatalay, Murat Başol, Filiz Mungan, Mete Arif Tokmak, Arel Talu, Cansu Gürsu, Hasan Doğan Yılmaz, Emre Yılmaz, Numan Seven, Elif Atılır, Döndü Özkök, Nilay Hazal Başarır, Göktuğ Danacı, Gizem Karagöz, Bartu Akyürek, Ekin Kılıç Ezer, Pervin Hozatlıoğlu and Aslı Alpar, will welcome its’ visitors until December 23 in Ankara, at Karikatür Atölyesi.
You can see artworks from various disciplines from cartoon to illustration, and from sketch art to installation within the scope of the exhibition.
About the exhibition
The exhibition was prepared after “Gender Equality, and Climate Crisis Workshop (Çizgili Çalıştay)” held by May 17 Association and Kaos GL on October 28-29, in Ankara with the participation of artists.
You may read the “An Introduction to the Intersectionality of LGBTI+ Community & Climate Crisis – Commencing the transition by transition: Climate 101 – Recommendation Guide” published in 2021 by May 17 Association, which brought the artworks together within the scope of the exhibition named “fawns, children, flowers, flames”. “
“The system established by the human species by centering itself threatens the future of all species, including itself”
The whole text of the exhibition is as follows:
"In Alice's wood where things that forgot their names/and fawn and children walked together fearless, /a stone might flower, a stream burst into flames, /a heavy human soul go light and careless. /But through the forest of the failing mind, /where words decay like fallen leaves, and paths long trodden /are lost, the souls plod onward to no end,/fawns, children, flowers, flames forgotten."
“Disremembering by Ursula K. El Guin*
We are in that wood where “fawn and child walk together fearless". We are in that wood where we are abandoned because we do not resemble the image of the so-called majority and because we resist the domination of dualisms by unity.
The system established by the human species by centering itself threatens the future of all species, including itself. While states are trying to manage a global crisis with national tools, the policies they have developed do not have a vision other than “maintaining the order same as before”. Policies developed by ignoring the root causes of the global climate crisis leave not only non-human species behind, but also some of human beings behind.
Today's question is: “How do we survive?” This question is the result of the idea formed by assuming that the world we live in or similarly the body we live in are opposing dualisms: “Natural-artificial”, “normal-abnormal”, “wild-domestic” … Indeed, that is not the way the world is. Nature and all the species that live in it are in symbiotic contact, relational and in need of each other. Not opposing, but intertwined and united.
Therefore, it is not possible to prevent the global climate crisis only with "environmentalist" superficial policies. A meaningful fight against the climate crisis originating from all the unequal relations we have established, can be ensured by anti-capitalist, collective, egalitarian and queer transformation.
In this group exhibition, which we desire to realize this experience by art, by being inspired from the verses of Ursula K. Le Guin, we wanted to make sure that “fawns, children, flowers, flames” are not forgotten.
“* Ursula K. Le Guin, 'Disremembering‘, Late in the Day: Poems 2010-2014. PM Press, United States, 2016.
Tags: arts and culture
