About the project
For this project, artist Metincan Güzel explores shop interiors of Rotteram Zuid, Whose owners migrated mostly from different cities in Turkey. Guzel considers these as diasporaric scenographies, that due to certain elements, can be described as magical, causing a spatial shift to either existing and imaginary places and times.
The project aims to reveal conscious and unconscious knowledge of the Turkish diaspora in creating imaginary spaces. Güzel recognized a theatrical tendency in the way these spaces are put together by the shopkeepers, creating stages that invoke both the here and there.
The knowledge uncovered in the research reveals new perspectives on political questions about juxtapositions that arise within the diasporic context, such as the idea of being both in place and displaced. Güzel opens up a conceptual discussion of what local knowledge, artistic production, and theatricality within this context can be, and creates opportunities to establish recognition of the described practices within the cultural field.
Guzel will take over a studio space at Zuid. Boijmans Van Beuningen using this as a base for further research where he will present his findings.
