Nihan Karahan graduated from Paris-Sorbonne University with a bachelor's degree in Art History in 2016 and completed a long-term internship at Gagosian Gallery’s Le Bourget and Champs-Élysées branches in Paris. Before pursuing art history, she earned a BA in Psychology from René Descartes University and an MA in Clinical Psychology from Paris-Nanterre University. Her articles on art and psychology have been featured in Psychologies, PsikeArt, Art Unlimited, Artam, and Argonotlar magazines. She has held communications roles at Pi Artworks, Cue Art Space, Mercure Gallery, Be Contemporary, and Gru Art Gallery.
In 2021, she founded The Letter Art Gallery, a traveling art gallery that organizes exhibitions in office spaces across İzmir. Since 2023, she has also been running the artist residency program Atelier, a venue sponsored by Goyahub. Additionally, since 2022, she has been working as an editor at the Ahmet Piriştina City Archive Museum in İzmir.
The twenty-first century was anticipated to be an era of prosperity for humanity, driven by technological advances. However, it began as a period marked by increasing difficulties, including pandemic, earthquakes, global warming, economic crises, and wars. These challenges have led to widespread social and individual disappointment.
Freud’s theory of the reality principle, theorized as opposing the pleasure principle and essential for the self's survival, has become increasingly rigid in this context.
Can art provide protection from these challenges? Can it offer a space where sadness subsides, wounds heal, and hope resurfaces? Artists and their works hold the key to this safe space through various mediums. The exhibition traces the signs of this transition in the works created by the artists. By presenting these works together, it offers insights into an imagined and theoretical map of "a place to hide", symbolizing the healing power of art. To achieve this, the exhibition draws inspiration from the healing process's cycle; uncanniness, acceptance, mourning, catharsis, care, and psychological renewal.
Life presents some extraordinarily difficult tests—collective traumas, losses, mental or physical illnesses. Amid the relentless flow of time, individuals strive to persevere and sustain their existence. The first part of this two-part exhibition showcases works by artists who have responded to these challenges with resistance and creative energy. The second part delves into the psychological space where the healing process begins.
This place to hide, from which the exhibition takes its name, does not actually exist. Where can one escape from harsh realities? In this sense, a place to hide exists only in the imagination and is accessed through the unconscious. Hale Tenger’s work I no longer want to recall this unique image / The heaving chest of the winds (2019), displayed at the exhibition's entrance, symbolizes this idea. The infinite loop of wind roaming over the sea represents the individual’s unconscious emotions, thoughts, desires, and fears, while also embodying humanity’s shared experiences and archetypes.
Unconfronted and hard to internalize experiences are often repressed into the unconscious to free the mind. However, they later resurface with an unsettling sense of uncanniness through ordinary objects, situations, or experiences. This uncanniness is vividly evident in Alpin Arda Bağcık’s work Ritonavir (2022). The piece references the Chemtrail conspiracy theory, wherein contrails from airplanes are interpreted as evidence of chemical substances being deliberately sprayed for harmful purposes, such as biological warfare or psychological manipulation. This idea gained further traction during the Covid pandemic, with some attributing the virus’s spread to such methods. In this context of media manipulation and opaque political narratives, even a simple airplane trail in the sky can evoke paranoia. Bağcık meticulously captures these conspiracy-inspired image on canvas, blending sensitivity with precision.
Armağan Şıvgın’s work Visit (2024), created with a combination of oil painting and AI collage techniques, portrays a scene where an alien transfers advanced technology to humans. Interestingly, all the characters’ faces are self-portraits of the artist. This mental universe, where subjective and objective realities intertwine, reflects the schizophrenic world from which the artist also suffers. The association between creativity and mental illness has been turned into a popular culture element by the media. However, contrary to popular belief, there is no scientific connection between them. What does exist is the therapeutic effect of art, as proposed by Margaret Naumburg since the 1940s, achieved through the expression of repressed emotions and unconscious conflicts.
Artists can also actively engage with the cathartic potential of art. Arzu Arbak’s Lack (2016) series, created after the loss of her son, serve as a psychoanalytic exploration. Drawing on Lacan's concept of primordial loss—the separation of a child from the symbiotic relationship with the mother—Arbak examines the void created by this disconnection and the mirror phase's divergence between self-perception and reflection. She describes her photographs as a way to "fill the absence and the void left by the original loss." Similarly, Karbon | Deniz Yılmazlar’s Void (2016) series points to the void created after loss, attempting to understand it imaginatively, the after image of the deceased is a void, and the artist makes this emptiness visible.
Just as the sea shapes a shore, time shapes a person, offering healing when allowed. In her series titled From Lines to the Frequency (2023–2024), Ege Subaşı highlights the transformation of the self over time, portraying the passage of time through portraits.
Resistance is essential for healing under all circumstances. Nietzsche defined the will to power as the fundamental driving force of existence—a force that enables life to unfold as a dynamic and creative process, allowing individuals to strive for self-surpassing and transformation. Çağrı Saray’s work Do You Need a Savior? (2013) embodies this idea as the piece, a flag sewn from a superhero outfit, concretizes this will to power. Saray asserts that even after the dissolution of art's ideal, art persists as an act of resistance, aiming to inspire viewers.
Catharsis is a significant concept in both Ancient Greek philosophy and modern psychology, denoting the process of emotional purification. Aristotle used catharsis to describe the emotional impact of tragedy on an audience, while Freud applied the term to the release of repressed emotions in psychoanalytic therapy. Nejat Satı’s work from the series Catharsis (2020) facilitates the expression of personal difficulties, enabling individuals to confront and alleviate their traumas through artistic engagement. Similarly, Bilal Hakan Karakaya’s sculpture Diomira (2022), inspired by imaginary cities, offers a metaphorical refuge. The artist's references to fairy tales, dreams, and mythological stories provide indirect cathartic effects, while the sculpture's spatial forms visually depict a "place to hide."
Elçin Acun’s Universe of Whispers (2021) serves as a metaphor for the self. In the video, the artist walks in a circle on the beach, completely alone with her inner voice. This act of drawing boundaries, constructing the self, and renewing it through movement reflects the process of healing.
To understand oneself, one must first come to terms with their family and familial relationships. Okyanus Çağrı Camcı addresses this directly in her series Marriage (2019) and Marriage Certificate (2021), transforming personal family archives into an art practice to gain deeper insight into herself.
Care and love are fundamental to human existence—not in a mystical sense but as essential social behaviors. Human babies rely on adult care for survival over an extended period. A lack of care and love during this formative phase can hinder the development of the self. For a person to find themselves, they must have received care and love. Focusing on this approach, Sena Başöz’s video work Box (2020) offers the viewer a moment of compassionate connection, providing solace after the challenging themes presented in the exhibition.
Amongst life’s struggles, humor can lighten the burden of seriousness. Ece Ağırtmış’s Mistakes (2023) transforms errors into playful, toy-like objects, while Rocking Horse (2023) evokes the innocence and simplicity of childhood.
Compass (2023), collectively created in a workshop led by Navine G. Dossos—who was diagnosed with lymphoma and now recovered—bears significant personal symbols contributed by participants. These “compasses” aim to help viewers find their own "place to hide" when needed.
Art, which Winnicott described as a transitional space, bridges the inner world of psychoanalytic desires and external reality. Acting as a protective buffer, art can function as a breakwater against life’s challenges. A Place to Hide was conceived as a sanctuary—an invisible, safe space accessible only to those who seek it. With a profound respect for the viewer’s sensitivity, this exhibition showcases works born from artists' resilience and creativity in confronting life’s difficulties.