Deniz Akural

Curator: Vered Hadad​


July 2019


As part of the Jerusalem − Istanbul residency program.

For a month and a half, Akural stayed at the gallery, documenting the city of Jerusalem and not the people living in it.

At the opening event, Deniz Akural presented her work "Part of Us" in which she invited the audience to take part and become a partner in the work itself. While representing Acorel personally invited a participant to bring her to the table. There, in private, the artist had an intimate conversation with each participant when the guiding question was: "One thing you would like to hide."
Each participant was asked to write on a piece of coffee paper the thing she wanted to hide. At the end of the writing, Acoral separated the paper from its monkey. During a conversation with the participant, Acoral set fire to the coffee paper and its crumbling remnant cast into a plastic pendant, which she gave to the participant as a souvenir. The paper itself was hung to replace the space on pre-placed wires.

The personal wish and its transformation into works of art with a repetitive pattern made the encounter with those hidden wishes particularly fascinating. A glimpse into a variety of other wishes, the viewer was a source of discovery and identification of things they would like and want to hide for themselves. She discovers through her work how we have in common and an inner observation that brings us closer to each other.

Her works can be seen: denizakural.com