SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE DATES:
Happening # 1: Procession through cemetery, candle lighting and Turkish tea served
- Date/Time: January 13, 2018, 2 – 5 PM
- Location: Mountain View Cemetery Celebration Hall & Courtyard
Happening #2: Turkish coffee fortune readings and traditional Turkish Tahini Helva served.
- Date/Time: January 20, 2018, 2 – 5 PM.
- Location: grunt gallery #116 350 – East 2nd Ave
Happening #3: Akay family game from their great-grandmother titled, 1001 Fortunes and traditional Noah’s Pudding served.
- Date/Time: January 27, 2018, 2 – 5 PM.
- Location: grunt gallery #116 350 – East 2nd Ave.
“Our work will allow us and others to re-experience memories/emotions with late ones and create a possibility for understanding / honouring our ancestors and alive family members. We will try to create a commemoration in act and in physicality through building a shrine and creating events. We will create a place to eat, play and pray. Where we will find ways to deal with ghosts/grief of many geographies/generations dead and alive and search ways to coexist in peace and harmony.” Derya Akay, Dilara Akay
In January of 2018, grunt gallery will produce the exhibition “Ghost Spring” a two-person show by Dilara Akay and Derya Akay looking at funeral practices within their own family in Turkey, passing down information from one generation to the next. This mother and son team re-creates the rituals around death for some lives who are not considered grievable. The artists will produce an installation and a series of activations that explore ways to deal with ghosts/griefs of many geographies/generations and experience ways to coexist— focusing especially on food that is presented to, and eaten for, the dead. The works in the gallery include garlands and flowers, texts and drawings as offerings to their ancestors.
Biographies
Dilara Akay
Born in (’63) Adana,Turkey lives and works in Göcek, Turkey. Graduated Bosphorus University (’85). Founder of artist platform HAYAKA ARTI (‘05) and alternative gallery project interfacegallery.com (
www.dilaraakay.com
Derya Akay (b, 1988, Turkey) is an artist living in Vancouver. He received the 2016 Portfolio Prize Emerging Artist Award in Vancouver. He has an upcoming two-person project with Dilara Akay at Grunt Gallery, Vancouver in January 2018 titled Ghost Spring and solo exhibition at Unit 17, Vancouver in May 2018. Recent solo exhibitions include with bread, Campbell River Art Gallery, 2017; Pumice, Del Vaz Projects, Los Angeles, California, 2017; Painting with Light, Kunstverein Toronto, 2015; Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Supper, Centre A, Vancouver, 2014. Recent group shows include The Lulennial II: A Low-Hanging Fruit, Lulu, Mexico City, 2018; Nature’s Way, Cooper Cole, Toronto, 2017; Here, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, 2017; Ambivalent Pleasures, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2016. He recently completed his project Mantı, Börek, Baklava at the Burrard Marina Field House Residency program hosted by the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. For this project, Akay worked with elder women with immigrant backgrounds to host a series of cooking workshops and lunches open to the public.
Curated by Glenn Alteen
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