Andrea Knezović & Yeşim Akdeniz

Curated and text by Àngels Miralda

Kasa Galeri

Minerva Han, Bankalar Caddesi No: 2, Karaköy, Istanbul

Exhibition: 25 April – 30 May 2026

Initiated in Amsterdam in October 2025, the exhibition’s first iteration connected closely with the environment of migration, bureaucracy, and general elections within a European context. Through the sculptural assemblages of Yeşim Akdeniz balancing labour and migration, and the direct fixations on the psychogeography of social interaction in the work of Andrea Knezović, the exhibition questioned the conditions for the creation of culture under constant surveillance. At the ballot-box, filled in papers decided the future of voiceless non-citizens, their ability to make a living, and the right to remain. The exhibition positions the identity of an outsider as a durational performance that has to do with making a living wage under time constraints embedded with social and political prejudices and limitations. While institutions tend to exploit these conditions for their own narrative, this exhibition proposed a deeper look into the matter through direct and abstract reflection.

In the second part of this exhibition, the two artists rework these themes in a follow-up exhibition in Kasa Galeri’s bank vault, creating an even closer metaphor between time, money, and power. The works of Andrea Knezović and Yeşim Akdeniz both refer to language while resulting in very different artistic forms. Akdeniz’s sculptural and wall-based assemblages often refer to popular refrains, folk wisdom, and the collective experience of migration through tongue-in-cheek conceptual compositions that mix abstract references with the ungraspable familiarity of the uncanny. A new series of wall-based sculptural works references manual labour, bodily dimensions, and the texture of material and technological realms. They allude heavily to the role of gendered labour within the complex matrix of social Belonging.

Meanwhile, Knezović’s hand-written drawings, vinyl-cut phrases, and kinetic installation pose sociological questions about time, value, and labour in spatial circuits that result in individual psychogeographies of artistic space. This iteration of the work has been made in consultation with artist Irem Günaydin in order to create a direct local anchor with the lived experience of the city. This direct use of language triggers solitary or social dialogue. The metal kinetic installation In Our Times (Knezović, 2025) keeps a record of time spent. This piece physically transforms Kasa into a giant metronome as it clicks back and forth, raising awareness of the layered chronopolitics that we persistently inhabit.

The exhibition was generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund and the Dutch Embassy in Türkiye.

Credits:

Graphic Design: Marit van der Gevel

Technical Master Work: Studio Otakar Zwartjes

Translation Consultant for As Above So Below: Irem Günaydin

Space & Facilities: Derya Yücel

Initiation: Doris Benhalegua Beri