‘Whistling Memory’ exhibition opens at Yapı Kredi Museum

ISTANBUL

The exhibition “Whistling Memory,” prepared on the basis of the Yapı Kredi Museum’s Numismatic and Shadow Theater collections, has opened its doors to visitors at the Yapı Kredi Museum.

Offering a narrative that spans theater and performance history, Ottoman-era archaeological excavations and Mesopotamia, the exhibition was introduced with a press preview and a guided tour outlining its conceptual framework, attended by the artists.

Burcu Çimen, director of the Yapı Kredi Museum and curator of the exhibition, told Anadolu Agency that the show brings together works by Akram Zaatari, Hilal Can and Michael Rakowitz.

Çimen said the exhibition had been a long-considered project, adding that the museum wanted to expand its scope in the new period by including works related to contemporary art alongside archaeology, ethnography and other exhibitions.

She noted that the exhibition evolved into a project shaped not only by the museum’s collection but also by ideas of collection-making, archives and memory.

“Hilal Can produced 12 new shadow play figures for the exhibition in dialogue with the museum’s shadow theater collection. Together with Karagöz and Hacivat figures, they create a new dialogue. We looked at how tradition can be brought together with contemporary art today. Michael Rakowitz’s works focus particularly on the removal of collections to the West and their destruction. Akram Zaatari is included with works connected to Osman Hamdi Bey’s 1887 excavations in Sidon,” she said.

Tülay Güngen, general manager of Yapı Kredi Culture, Arts and Publishing, said that the three artists produced new works by engaging with the Yapı Kredi Museum Collection and also contributed works from their portfolios. “We wanted the works in our collection to converse with works from other disciplines. They look at each other and speak to each other. This time, contemporary art meets our museum collection,” Güngen said.

Conceived as a living narrative space rather than a closed account of the past, “Whistling Memory” invites viewers to rethink memory not as a silent record but as a performative practice shaped by bodies, breath and sound.

The exhibition questions the relationship between historiography and storytelling. Rakowitz’s works make visible the destruction caused by the Iraq War and its impact on Mesopotamian cultural heritage, while Zaatari examines the Sidon excavation archives through photographs and new translations. Can interprets the language of light and shadow in Karagöz and Hacivat through mythology and the political position of the body.

The exhibition can be visited free of charge at the Yapı Kredi Museum until June 7.