Iz Öztat

We Are Not Familiar With a Generation That Has No Understanding of Sadness constructs a narrative around the artists’ fundamental research on the mimeograph. By using significant political texts and transcripts from history as a reference point, against this historical background, they reflect upon the contemporary situation in Türkiye. In affinity with previous generations, who are saddened by the perished dreams and ideals, they search for agency under despotism—attempting to negotiate their elusive position between two extremes of utopian escapism and revolutionary struggle as recourse to estrangement.

Confused Examination Under Given Circumstances, 2020, revisits a John Ruskin lecture titled “On the Elements of Crystallization” and Freud’s “crystal-principle” to draw parallels between the rigidity of crystals and the disciplinary procedures of governments. Öztat weaves her lecture through interludes of crystal-fondling and crystal-licking, testing the sharp, erotic edges of the mineral as her 3-D models melt into stringy, jellyfish-like forms. After guiding viewers through paintings, X-rays, and scientific documents on the subject, the artist’s hand enters a black glove and yanks a trapezoidal hunk of ersatz schairerite out of the frame. Öztat’s study reflects the show’s interest in crystals as shapeshifting organisms and emblems for the liquid borders between ancestral cultures and modernity, between translucence and opacity.

This puppet play satirizes national narratives through Kasperle theatre and Karagöz shadow-play conventions. Structured around three contracts; Faust and the devil, the artist and the state, and erotic power-play; it makes consent, refusal, and accountability visible as puppets defy authority and demand justice.