POSITIVE SPACE

Positive Space, exhibition view, 2018, Operation Room.

Exhibition + Curatorial Research Creation Project

Ardıl Yalınkılıç, Artık Isler Collective, Can Küçük, Ceren Saner, Furkan Öztekin, Elmgreen & Dragset, Güneş Terkol, Iz Öztat, Leyla Gediz, Nihat Karataşlı, Onur Karaoğlu, Özgür Erkök Moroder, Pınar Marul, Sabo Akdağ, Sadık Arı, Serdar Soydan and Ünal Bostancı

curated by Alper Turan

1 December 2018–2 February 2019

Operation Room at American Hospital, Istanbul

Positive Space is an exhibition addressing the pervasive issue of HIV/AIDS in Turkey. Since the first sensationalized AIDS case of Mürteza Elgin in Turkish media, HIV/AIDS has been mired in scandal, despite the alarming rise in infection rates. The virus remains a taboo subject, shrouded in public stigma. This exhibition aims to attribute a collective identity to the virus, rejecting the notion of protecting a 'sterile' other.

The title "Positive Space" is derived from a term used for the focal point of visual art compositions. By doing so, the exhibition brings the background to the fore, making this silenced, stigmatized matter detectable. The exhibition asks the audience to get exposed, opposing the presentation of a negative space.

Positive Space unpacks the local meanings of HIV/AIDS collectively & in the public space of a hospital. It opens up discussions about themes, directly related to HIV/AIDS, such as visibility and stigma, victimhood and guilt, pleasure and disease with bodies in modes of recording, separating, accepting and rejecting, infecting and spreading. Even though the exhibition affirms ‘positivity,’ it reserves the right to see AIDS as a metaphor. Unrepressed HIV does not destroy the cell, it attacks and emaciates it, just like hegemonic domination or biopolitics do. Positive Space looks for new contamination technologies to combat these practices.