Egrikavuk, Isil

For the original work Departure Time (2015), Isil Egrikavuk offers self-portraiture in a tradition of immersive performance, for an insider’s view into life being female in her present and former home countries. In the staged scene, Egrikavuk herself takes center stage and portrays the narrative of having arrived at an empty train station. She is dressed as a bride traveling on the way to a fictional marriage. Costumed in a powerful symbol of traditional femininity, the artist defiantly breaks from the expected behavior for a woman within her scene. The act of having one’s shoe polished in public space usually belongs to men only, Isil Egrikavuk has described. Her specific gesture and dramatized occupation of gendered space contests limitations and signals a protest to expectations of women in public space. For BUT YOU DON’T (2018), she stands alone in a reflective body of water in Germany, gesturally asking, What are the stereotypes people attribute to others based on their kinships, passports, and nationalities?

Egrikavuk was the 2012 co-winner of Turkey’s first contemporary art prize, the Full Art Prize. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at La Casa Encencida, Madrid; the Chicago Architecture Biennial; Die Büehne, Berlin; Art Souterrain, Montreal; and the Lenbachhaus Museum, Munich; the 11th Istanbul Biennial; and Endgame, South Korea; among others.