Friday 26 January 2024
10:00 am
“Lea Mattarella” Great Hall
2:30 pm
Hall 406
Academy of Fine Arts in Rome
Via di Ripetta, 222.
Saturday 27 January
10:00 am
Room 1A
Academy of Fine Arts in Rome
Campo Boario – Largo Dino Frisullo s.n.c.
We will also have better days is a workshop developed from the experience of the artist Zehra Doğan and will be held on 26-27 January. On Friday 26th from 10 am, a lectio magistralis will be held in the Aula Magna, while the practical part will take place from 2.30 pm in room 406. On Saturday 27th, the workshop moves to Campo Boario, where work will continue in room 1A from 10 am and where the Ararat Association will host us for a lunch dedicated to cultural sharing. Through the use of non-traditional materials, this workshop aims to explore the meaning of the body today and how it, particularly the female body, is influenced by the concept of possession. How do I relate to my body, especially in an extreme context such as a prison? How do I define my identity through it? How does the idea of possession influence the relationships that are woven between my body and the body of the other? How can individual feeling be connected to collective events? Considering the political dimension in which Zehra Doğan’s work is situated, as well as the eclectic nature of the expressive means employed, the workshop aims to analyse the reasons underlying the perception of the body as a prison, as something that one has and not as an integral part of the self. With a versatile artistic language like that of Zehra Doğan, made up of drawings, paintings, performances, videos, installations and newspaper articles, we have the opportunity to bring personal experience to the collective level. The workshop aims to serve as a means of discussion in order to explore new creative possibilities and as a means of analysis and reflection on highly topical issues that are reflected not only in individual experience, but also at a global level, with a particular focus on the conflicts that afflict the contemporary world.
Workshop participants must bring some of the materials proposed for the creation of a work:
Fabrics (light-coloured, such as sheets, pillowcases, old T-shirts)
Newspaper pages, packaging cardboard
Coffee,
Tea
Water
Bleach, chlorine bleach
Turmeric, spices
Menstrual blood
Pencils, black markers, black ballpoint pens
Hair
Needle and thread
Scissors
Brushes, sponges, acrylic paints
Bowls, containers for mixing.
To confirm participation in the workshop, students are requested to send an email to: a.segafredo@abaroma.it with the subject: WORKSHOP DOGAN and in the text: PARTICIPANT’S SURNAME.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
An artist and activist born in Turkey, but who defines herself as Kurdish, Zehra Doğan was arrested and imprisoned in 2016 because of the political dissent expressed through her works. Accused of making propaganda for the PKK, in prison she is denied the opportunity to make art in the traditional way. Zehra Doğan, in fact, managed to continue her artistic research despite the limited availability of materials and substrates for painting, through the use of carpets, spices and coffee, but also urine and menstrual blood. Her works explore identity and the body, understood not as an object, but as an expression of the individuality of each human being, particularly that of women. The artist questions in particular the concepts of instinct and ambition to possess, linking them to a dimension that is both individual and collective. These are the dynamics that generate situations of unresolvable conflict, both between states and between individuals. In 2023, the graphic novel Prison No. 5 was published in Italian, bringing together the drawings and reflections produced during her imprisonment, which the artist managed to smuggle out of the Diyarbakir prison where she was held. When interviewed about her artistic language, Zehra Doğan emphasises that it is through art and the materials she uses that she expresses her resistance. Starting in June, Prison No. 5 will become part of the Mondo Graphic Novel series, curated by La Repubblica, dedicated to the most representative graphic novels of the 2000s. Zehra Doğan has been awarded several international prizes for her courage in journalism. These include the Courage in Journalism Award in 2018, the Freethinker Prize in 2017 and the Metin Goktepe Journalistic Award in 2015 for her articles on Yazidi women fleeing ISIS captivity. Zehra Doğan has also had her works of art exhibited in several countries. The most recent exhibitions in which she has taken part include: Les Maternités de A à Z, MUCEM, Marseille (2023); Observatory on Deculturalization, OXYD Kunsträume, Winterthur (2023); Splendid Isolation, SMAK, City Museum for Contemporary Art, Ghent (2023); En la selva eau mucho por hacer, curated by Maria Barrios for the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago, Chile (2022); Beyond, at the Prometeo Gallery, Milan, 2020; Avremo anche giorni migliori, Opere dalle carceri turche, from which this workshop takes its name, at the Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, 2019; The Pencil Is a Key, Drawings by Incarcerated Artists, Drawing Center, New York. Her political commitment has also been recognised and appreciated by two great contemporary artists. In 2018, the British artist Banksy launched a social media campaign in favour of the release of the Kurdish artist and, at the same time, painted the Bowery Wall in a gesture of solidarity with Zehra Doğan, who was still imprisoned. In November 2017, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei published a letter expressing solidarity with the imprisoned journalist-artist, comparing the repression of artistic expression in China and Turkey. “How has the body become a prison for women, when it should be considered a part of who we are and not just a form of possession? How was it possible to turn biology into ideology? How have human beings, by defining themselves through their bodies, locked themselves into sexist norms?” “I don’t understand why we are thrown in prison. We come out of it even stronger.”