2013

In January 2013, spent a little over a month as an artist in residence at MataderoMadrid as part of the project HereTogetherNow, trying to piece together the fragments of a fallen monument.

The work in question was placed awkwardly on Legazpi Square, immediately outside of Matadero and covered with some custom fitted fabric. “It’s always been like that” I was told. No, it was not an artistic intervention, but a consequence of the supposedly lingering lawsuit between its restorers and the municipality. Some claimed that the cover was in fact protecting the fragile work, others guessed that it was veiling a controversial historic figure.

The suspiciously varying explanations led me to start an investigation in the neighborhood with the help of a Spanish speaking assistant and a sound recorder. The interviews we conducted were later shown as a sound installation in at MataderoMadrid during the public presentation of the residency. There were eight sound stations marked with the eight questions we asked in the interviews; the edited replies looped in each station. The questions were designed to generate answers that would resonate around the issues of memory and the built environment as well as individual or collective desire in relation to the treatment of public space. This site specific installation also began to discuss the very possibility of public space.

Across from the sound installation, a brief but extremely confusing history in progress of the fallen monument, la Gloria y Los Pegasos, was laid out. It included a timeline, some images, and many articles from newspapers and magazines. In the middle, between the sound installation and the history, were two items that project the work into the future.

Special thanks to MataderoMadrid, Miguel Angel Rego and Icaro Maiterena

2012-1013

Sibel Horada’s first solo show was hosted by Daire Gallery between June 7th - September 18th 2012. “Fire Chronicles” was a process and interaction based accumulation assembled during the course of the exhibition.

“Fire Chronicles” deals with fire as a moment of radical transformation and consists of found objects, burnt objects, images and inkless notes on remembering, forgetting, time, history and identity.

The installation is currently shown at MAK Museum, Vienna between January 23 - April 21st 2013, as part of "Signs Taken in Wonder: Searching for Contemporary Istanbul". In September 2013 it will move to Izmir to be shown as part of Port İzmir 3.

Selected Press

Christina Anglanda, Fire Chronicles by Sibel Horada, HereTogetherNow Blog, 2013

Seda Yörüker, Bir Duygulanım Olarak Arşive Dalmak, Genç Sanat, Temmuz-Agustos 2012

Neylan Bagcioglu, Interview with Sibel Horada: Yangın Bacayı Sarınca, Radikal,  21 Haziran 2012

2012

Mixed media installation

24 limited edition original prints on paper

Untitled Machine and Last Impressions were part of An Attempt at Exhausting a Place, a group show at Istanbul's recently closed Passover Bakery. Untitled Machine mirrors the 21 m long machine still located on the first floor of the exhibition space. The installation consists of 14 video loops shot from various parts of the machine as it runs without producing anything. Last Impressions were created as the machine was ran one last time to produce a series of 24 prints on paper. The installation also includes a headset with excerpts from interviews conducted with various people who have had some kind of affinity to the space.

Exhibition text by Lara Fresko, An Attempt at Exhausting a Place (revised version), M-est, May 2012

Selected Press:

Elif Batuman, Phantom Matzo Factory, The NewYorker, May 2012

Jay Cassano, An Exhausted Machine, Mashallah News, May 2012

hair, polyester, metal, wood

2009-2010

Wood installation, dimentions variable

“As if It Never Existed” is dedicated to the memory of a Paulownia tree which once existed at the gardens of Yıldız Technical University. The tree which must have been among the oldest Paulownia’s in Istanbul was cut down in 2009, and all thraces of it disappeared after a further attempt at removing its stump that had remained on the ground. The installation includes broken pieces of the stump and roots that the artist reclaims, along with some of the information she was able to gather about this particular tree.

Click here to read Vasıf Kortun's text from the catalogue of 29. Contemporary Artists İstanbul Exhibition curated by November Paynter and Marc Gloede.

2008 - in progress

porcelain, dimentions variable

2008

painted polyester

2007-2010

35mm Slide Projection 8’, projector, couch, stool

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“Urban Knights” includes a selection of 80 slides from the collection of chairs I spotted on the streets of Istanbul between 2007 and 2010. The photographs were taken without any intervention, as part of my daily practice in Istanbul. They are displayed in the form of a slide projection, and can be watched by sitting on an old couch beside the projector.

The work was realized as part of the Forest View, a workshop with artist Danae Stratou which took place in Istanbul in the context of Istanbul Cultural Capital of Europe 2010

Click here  or scroll down for a video impression of the installation.

2010

Dyed and reinforced plaster, rope, paint, 220x26 cm photograph

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This piece was produced during my residency with Among Other Things in Bolu where I lived near and worked in the beech forest. I marked the closest trees around a single point I chose in the forest and took plaster “impressions” from them. The 360º photograph in which the chosen trees are numbered is taken from that point. The numbers and placement of the impressions in the installation correspond to the original locations of the trees.

2002-....

Human hair (the artist’s own hair), ceramic sink, dimensions variable

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I have started building this monument in 2002 by recollecting my lost hair and plan to continue for the rest of my life. I carefully roll and shape the fallen clusters like beads which I then string on fishing line.  As a recorded history of my body through time, this monument will grow, change and strengten every time it is exhibited.