{"id":4436,"date":"2025-01-27T12:18:53","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T11:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/?page_id=4436"},"modified":"2025-09-30T17:40:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:40:23","slug":"elif-saydam","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/year-2025\/elif-saydam\/","title":{"rendered":"Elif Saydam"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Exhibition text (Easy read)<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Elif Saydam<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Saving Nine<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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14.06.2025 - 03.08.2025<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The faggots and their friends and the women who love women can, they\nbegin to know, stop and do no-thing. That is something for them to do.\n\u2013 Larry Mitchell, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions (1977)
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The roof of this 200-year-old barn that is Kunsthal Thy has been imprinted onto canvas\nthrough a rust-dying technique to record its structure and materiality. This is the first\ntimestamp of Saving Nine<\/em> and the basis of Elif Saydam\u2019s invitation for collective labor. The\nexhibition will undergo several transformations under their guidance and result in a\ncollaborative artwork. This piece will remain at the service of the institution for future\ngatherings.<\/p>

Dyeing, stitching, eating, cutting, chatting, sipping\u2026 These are some of the activities open to\nparticipants. The roof-imprint becomes a backdrop for banners hanging in the space, which are\nmeant to be chopped up into smaller pieces and repurposed. These panels will then be quilted\nin the first workshops of the exhibition, presented with a larger cloth which records a mehmuni<\/em>\n\u2013 a Farsi word for \u201cparty\u201d \u2013 on June 21, 2025.<\/p>

This solstice gathering will be archived through\ncyanotype, a printing-technique using light-sensitive pigments. The shapes of guests, cups,\nplates, cutlery and their movements will be recorded in dark blues. This is Saving Nine<\/em>\u2019s\nsecond timestamp: a textile that abstracts and remembers the act of hosting, conflating the\nmovements of things, guests and friends alike.<\/p>

Such a moment of doing-together entails \u2013 and this is specific to Saydam\u2019s machinations in the\nexpanded field of painting \u2013 the time-consuming, skill-adept and excessive work of\ndecorating. Usually understood as superfluous adornment and reviled as feminine and oriental,\ndecoration requires staying with something, doing and undoing, tracing and retracing, trying\nand adjusting, keeping in mind the stitches to come. These repetitive activities whose\nutilitarian value tends to escape us are ways of spending time in community.<\/p>

Both the roof-imprint and cyanotypes function like timekeepers. They record the hours of the\nmany involved. The idea is to hold time between one\u2019s fingers and then share it with others\nthrough stitching patches into a larger whole. It reminds of the AIDS Memorial Quilt<\/em> (1985-\nongoing), a large blanket of panels commemorating victims of the AIDs pandemic that exists\ntoday as one of the largest collectively made artworks in the world. These works share the\nintensity that is the urgency of coming together in grief once the damage is done.<\/p>

The exhibition title speaks to the smallness of belated action. It is inspired by the proverb a\nstitch in time saves nine which advocates for immediate action. The show does not fully\nreproduce this normative economy of activity, and instead invites us to do and redo so much\nthat spending time together is the goal. The simplicity of this observation risks misrecognizing\nthe ethics of Saydam\u2019s intervention.<\/p>

Through their focus on the laborious repetition of minor actions \u2013 stitches being the smallest unit of needlework \u2013 the supposed banality of decorative\ncultural expression becomes the in and out of repair. In order to save nine we must do, now\ntogether.<\/p>

This reparative quality is implied in stitching as a verb denoting mending and conjoining that\nis also emblematic of another feature of Saydam\u2019s practice, exemplified in the show\u2019s title and\ntechniques: Their insistence on vernacular everyday forms of knowing that bind us together\nlike stitches. The commitment to decoration and ornament, the reappraisal of craft in\ncommunal structures of care and the bodies leaving blurred and abstracted cyanite traces\nwithout identifiable markers constitute the aesthetic and political coordinates of Saving Nine.<\/p>

In times marked by state terrorism, the narcissism of small differences, its complicity with\nnormative social orderings and debilitating narratives of collapse, the works offer a brief\nmoment of respite. Saydam invites us to pull a thread or two. The imprints of our bodies\nrendered illegible by abstraction are grounded in our shared labor.We are invited to make and\nunmake over tea and sweets, gifts and words. The artist and their friends, to adapt lines wellknown\nto Saydam, do no-thing. This is the third timestamp of Saving Nine<\/em> and something for\nus to do.<\/em><\/p>

\u2013 Jos\u00e9 Segebre<\/p>

CV<\/strong><\/h3>


Through an expanded painting practice, Turkish-Canadian artist Elif Saydam uses the\nlanguage of ornamentation and decoration to rearrange systems of valuation and emphasis.\nRecent solo and group exhibitions include List Projects 32 p\u00e5 MIT (Cambridge), RAUS at\nFranz Kaka (Toronto); Hospitality at Audain, Simon Fraser University Galleries\n(Vancouver);A CrackWe Sprout Through at SANATORIUM (Istanbul); it's not you it's me at\nSentiment (Zu\u0308rich); Stealth at Galerie Ru\u0308diger Sch\u00f6ttle (Munich); Eviction Notice at Oakville\nGalleries Gairloch Gardens (Ontario); Cleaning up the Neighborhood at All Stars\n(Lausanne); Lose Enden at Kunsthalle Bern (Bern); F*rgiveness at Tanya Leighton (Berlin);\nand ...schl\u00e4ft sich durch at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof (Hamburg).<\/p>

Saydam's first monograph TWO CENTS was published in 2022 with Mousse Publishing\n(Italy) and they frequently collaborate on interdisciplinary text-based projects with other\nartists and writers. Saydam lives and works between Berlin, Germany, and \u0130zmir, Tu\u0308rkiye.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Udstillingstekst (forenklet sprog) Elif Saydam Saving Nine 14.06.2025 – 03.08.2025 The faggots and their friends and the women who love women can, they begin to know, stop and do no-thing. That is something for them to do. \u2013 Larry Mitchell, The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions (1977) Taget p\u00e5 den 200 \u00e5r gamle lade, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":3908,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"h5ap_radio_sources":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4436","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4436"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4962,"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4436\/revisions\/4962"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kunsthalthy.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}