Onur Tayranoğlu
ŞEY 
Exhibition/Performance
1-22 Nov. 2024
2024
Performistanbul, Istanbul

Onur Tayranoğlu’s exhibition ŞEY, with the curatorial consultancy and hosting of Performistanbul, explores the concepts of performance and performativity in social, political and cultural contexts. Tayranoğlu deals with the experience of being diagnosed with a “disorder” and found “unfit” during the military roll call process from a performative perspective. While this experience offers them the opportunity to create a playground, it makes visible how much they have failed rather than how much they have followed the rules of the game.

The exhibition reconstructs Tayranoğlu’s experience of failing against the expectations of heteronormative institutions as a form of resistance and liberation. This approach is in line with Jack Halberstam’s concept of “failure” in his book Queer Art of Failure. According to Halberstam, failure is a means of resistance and deconstruction for queer individuals, especially within heteronormative social structures. From this perspective, Tayranoğlu transforms their diagnosis of “disorder” and the process they went through into a radical performance of failure.

The ŞEY exhibition, embodied as one of the artist’s performance outcomes, consists of two works that address the liberating potential of this failing performance in individual, familial and social contexts: The Rehearsal and O Şimdi Şey.

The Rehearsal is a 36-minute video performance that Tayranoğlu created with their mother, Fadime, just before the hospital examination required in the military roll-call process. The installation exposes their shared vulnerability and also a profound expression of solidarity. The artist refers to this rehearsal as a performative space which allows the unaskable questions to be asked and unanswerable answers to be given. Through roles such as mother and child, doctor and patient, soldier and state, they reveal not the success in embodying these roles, but the significance of their failure.

The work also highlights how Tayranoğlu and their mother navigate personal, social, and political taboos through the recurring use of the filler word “şey,” which also gives the exhibition its Turkish title. Şey, in Turkish, is often used in moments of hesitation, self-censorship, or uncertainty; şey becomes a linguistic tool for exploring these complex issues.

The work entitled  O Şimdi Şey – They are a Thing Now –, which includes a hand-embroidered scarf and a photographic print, explores the word “şey” that appears frequently in the artist’s and Fadime’s rehearsal. Through this piece, the artist invites their mother, themselves, and the audience to reflect on the bodies, identities and labels that can be obscured by this word due to societal pressures and taboos.