Arzu Başaran : « Still there… » exhibition

Painting | April 6-June 2, 2018

The Muscari association presents for the first time in France the exhibition “Still there…” by Arzu Başaran.

We invite you to discover this exhibition, which takes place at the Regard Sud gallery, from April 6 to June 2, 2018.

Arzu Başaran offers us emotion-rich works and poignant images to talk about dramatic events such as the Armenian genocide or migrations of refugees fleeing civil wars such as in Syria.

“My artistic act is closely linked to the history of my country. It thrives on the need to initiate remembrance in an amnesic culture. This exhibition was born from the first drawings I made following the death of Hrant Dink in 2007.

At first it was a desire to open the Pandora’s Box that Hrant created in his lifetime, for me and everyone who was ready to welcome this discovery.

The Armenian genocide in 1915, with deportations and exile, forms the core of this exhibition; even though we observe that, in other places, at other times, persecution is always the same.

Photographs I collected, testimonies I listened to, feelings, reactions, controversy, all buried in my heart, turned via art into lines, stains and blackness. I used different media and supports: pencil, ink, gouache, linocut, canvas, handmade paper.

In my artistic expression I included walking humans, forcibly displaced, torn from their homes, fated to darkness and oblivion because of the 2011 civil war in Syria and several conflicts, like the one with the Kurds, in my country.”

Arzu Başaran