Artists on a journey with no return

Though many dream about leaving their home country and moving to a place that appears more attractive, the new reality does not always live up to expectations.

As part of an art project touring between three cities, a new exhibition at the Akbank Sanat Gallery explores different aspects of migration. “Journeys With No Return,” curated by Peter Cross and Alice Sharp, will remain on display at the Akbank Sanat Beyoğlu Gallery until the end of October.

There is something sad in the people presented at the exhibition. Whatever the topic presented at the show, this one theme seems to pervade every work of the series presented. People are shown in anonymous, unnamed, and hard to identify spaces, as if a change of a place due to migration led to them losing their identities. 

The exhibition is inspired by poems the renowned Turkish writer and political figure Nâzım Hikmet collected in his book “Journeys with No Return.” The artists, including Kiran Kaur Brar, Adam Chodzko, Melanie Manchot, Mike Nelson, Olaf Nicolai and Zineb Sedira, present their own interpretations of the ideas reflected in his works, as well as their own experiences, as some of them are migrants or of migrant origin. And just as the artwork subjects migrate to other places, or remain on a continuous journey, the exhibition also travels to three different, culturally varied cities, namely Istanbul, Berlin and London.

In all those locations, migration can be seen in different dimensions, yet always as a global phenomenon involving millions of people. In Istanbul, the exhibition focuses mostly on the internal movement of Turks who came to the metropolis from other parts of the country; in Berlin, it showcases the migration of Turks to Germany during the “Gastarbeiter” program in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, while, in London, the pattern is rather irregular. Many Turkish people living there have lived in Germany previously. Today, London has one of the largest Turkish populations outside Turkey.

The end becomes a new beginning

The history of migration is as individual as the people who set out on their own journey, which can lead to political exile – as it did for the poet Nâzım Hikmet – or, on the other hand, can be seen as a new beginning. All six works presented in Istanbul deal with human emotions related to a change of place.  In her photographs, Melanie Manchot restores connections between people separated by migration. Zenib Sedira's video explores the idea of statelessness caused by life-transforming change. Mike Nelson's installation, commissioned exclusively for the Istanbul exhibition, creates a fiction parodying the artist's own longing to catch the disappearing memory of a city he loves. 

The “Journeys With no Return” project began with research at the Kreuzberg Museum, located in a center of Turkish immigration in Berlin and hence also known as “Little Istanbul.” The artists were able to use research as a fundamental element in their practice.  

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ANGINA PECTORIS by Nâzim Hikmet

If half my heart is here, doctor,

the other half is in China

with the army flowing

toward the Yellow River.

And, every morning, doctor,

every morning at sunrise my heart

is shot in Greece.

And every night, doctor,

when the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted,

my heart stops at a run-down old house

in Istanbul.

And then after ten years

ALL I HAVE TO OFFER MY POOR PEOPLE

IS THIS APPLE IN MY HAND, DOCTOR,

ONE RED APPLE:

MY HEART.

AND THAT, DOCTOR, THAT IS THE REASON

FOR THIS ANGINA PECTORIS-

NOT NICOTINE, PRISON, OR ARTERIOSCLEROSIS.

I look at the night through the bars,

and despite the weight on my chest

MY HEART STILL BEATS WITH THE MOST DISTANT STARS.