Material: Soil

Contemporary Art and Ecological Experiments (Production Workshop for Artists)

"Material: Soil"

Executive Artist: Larissa Araz

Date: January 29 - February 1, 2025

Time: 19:00 - 21:00

Soil is one of the primary substrates of life, serving as a reservoir for water and nutrients, a medium for filtering and breaking down harmful waste, and a key player in the cycling of carbon and other elements within the global ecosystem. Simultaneously, as a sociopolitical entity, land embodies the intersections of power, culture, and politics. It shapes human relations, governance, and justice, becoming a critical factor in the formation of social structures and global dynamics. Acknowledging the sociopolitical dimensions of land underscores its importance not only as a natural resource but also as a foundational element of human history and future sustainability.

Throughout the workshop, we will explore how soil is sometimes treated as the central subject of artistic research, at other times as one of the components of the research, and occasionally as the element that drives the inquiry. We will discuss the materials with which the outcomes of this research are transformed into exhibition practices. The workshop will also create an environment for discussion through the participants' own projects or designs.

Larissa Araz (Istanbul, 1990) is an artist and founder of Poşe artist-run space in Istanbul, Turkey. She studied Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, NY, USA and Visual Arts at Koç University in Istanbul, TR. She was a recipient of the Prince Claus Seed Award in 2021. She participated in Saha Studio residency from 2019-2020, Arter Research Program in 2020-2021, WHW Akademija in Zagreb in 2023 and the Cite Des Arts Residency in Paris in 2023 and the Onassis Artist Residency in Athens in 2024.

Araz focuses on alternative histories, non-human witnesses, and the construction of dominant ideologies through institutional knowledge production. Through personal narratives, she researches documents, archives, ruins, silences, traces, and memories that are not included in, or kept hidden from social memory. Between reality and fiction, she tries to discuss possible futures and unrevealed pasts. She uses different mediums in her practice but mainly focuses on text and image-making.

* This workshop is designed for participants who work with soil in their creative practice or aim to embark on a research and production process in this field. During the four-day workshop, participants are expected to attend regularly. The workshop is limited to a capacity of 12 participants and participation is free of charge.

* To join the program, you can submit your application by clicking the “Register” button on the page. Registrations will open 2 days prior to the first event date (on January 27, 2025, at 12:00), and the “Register” button will be accessible from that time onward. In the pre-registration phase, participants are required to include a short text in the message field summarizing their creative practices and motivation for joining the workshop. Applications will be reviewed to ensure a balanced participant profile, and invitations will be sent to selected candidates.

Workshop Program

- 29.01.2025 Wednesday / 19:00 - 21:00 / On Production and Materials (Online)

In the workshop, where the artist will share her own production practices and material discovery processes, we will discuss her experiences and methodologies, examining how she approaches the subject of soil and expresses it through her unique artistic perspective.

- 30.01.2025 Thursday / 19:00 - 21:00 / Concept and Production Process for Participants (Online)

After gaining an overview of the materials that participants are generally interested in, we will have a session where we will discuss their reasons for participating in this workshop and the connection they intend to establish with soil materials through short presentations.

- 31.01.2025 Friday / 19:00 - 21:00 / Material Possibilities (Online)

We will discuss how artists from different disciplines use the material in innovative and sustainable ways, and examine the role of soil as a form of artistic and political expression through various approaches and examples.

- 01.02.2025 Saturday / 13:00 - 15:00 / On Exhibition Practices (Akbank Sanat)

This session, where we will meet in person to discuss the exhibition practices and presentation techniques of the works produced by participants in relation to the earth, or the works/research ideas they aim to produce, will be held physically at Akbank Sanat.