HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS
ABOUT THE EVENT
Given recent global events that have horrifically undermined international law and humanitarian agreements, I would now argue that it is not only Istanbul but life itself, and the world as we’ve made it, that subjects us to a range of paradoxes.
Hale Tenger is one of the most important artists of her generation. A sensitive observer of the power relations that shape and change our realities, Tenger has spent over three decades exploring how to navigate the search for freedom, and understand better our action in the world through the poetics of image, sound and language.
HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS is the first museum survey of the artist’s work. Spanning Tenger’s practice from the 1990s to the present, this exhibition features iconic multimedia installations alongside significant works in video, sculpture and sound, foregrounding the ways in which Tenger’s concern with history, politics and human psychology shape narratives of belonging and exclusion.
Born in İzmir in 1960 and coming of age during the political turmoil that led to the 1980 military coup, Tenger emerged as part of a generation of Turkish artists who were seeking new artistic languages to address their shifting cultural and political realities. Such lived experiences and historical events, instilled in Tenger an urgency to put something out there: “For me, making art was the only way I could manage to become, to exist.”
Though covering more than thirty years, the works presented in this survey continue to speak to urgent global concerns of rising authoritarianism, the erosion of the public realm, restrictions on freedom of movement, media control and crackdowns on dissent, while encapsulating Tenger’s enduring preoccupations: the cyclical recurrence of war and peace, the tension between violence and gentleness, as well as hegemony, human oppression and the subjugation of more-than-human life forms.
This exhibition demonstrates Tenger’s unique construction of ‘affective atmospheres’ through the layering of sound, image and language. Her installations unfold slowly, revealing a subtle interplay of presence and absence, truth and fiction, past and future. These are works that don’t offer resolution but rather create spaces for reflection—on how history is constructed, how narratives are weaponised, and how we might find new ways of being within, and beyond, borders.
Tenger has said, ‘At its core my work is about standing against patriarchal hierarchical power games’, HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS is an invitation to attune to the psychic, physical and political borders that define and transform the world. As she says in relation to the turbulence of recent global events, ‘Life itself, and the world as we’ve made it, subjects us to a full range of paradoxes’; her work might not guide us out of this essential complexity but might accompany us on our journeys to make sense of things.
The exhibition is curated by Rachel Ciesla, Lead Creative, Simon Lee Foundation Institute of Contemporary Asian Art, The Art Gallery of Western Australia.
Opening Night Party
Join us 6-8pm, on Friday 15 August to celebrate the opening of HALE TENGER / BORDERS / BORDERS, the artist’s first museum survey exhibition.