The Universe Flickers

The problem with imaging the universe is that it is vast and opaque. Explanations of its functions and origins are shrouded in astrophysical jargon. Yet, at the same time, it is precisely the sense of mystery that has made the subject so compelling to innovators across multiple disciplines. 

Chinese science fiction author Cixin Liu entangles the enigmas of the universe with commentary on the equally bewildering societal changes during and after the Chinese Cultural Revolution in his contemporary classic, The Three Body Problem (2006). Liu’s novel in turn inspired Annie Fletcher, chief curator of Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum, to invite four women to exhibit spatial interventions at SALT Beyoğlu in a show named after a chapter in Liu’s book, “The Universe Flickers.” 

The artworks of Anna Boghiguian, Rana Hamadeh, Navine G. Khan-Dossos and Merve Ünsal dialogue with each other not in form, but according to underlying themes, which range from the limitations of human knowledge to feminism and legal theory. Considering that most visitors spend very limited periods of time at art exhibitions in Istanbul, the relationships between the works was likely as incomprehensible as the theories on the origins of the universe. However, the inclusion of these wide-ranging nodes of thought, and the underscoring of the flickering of the universe, also served as Fletcher’s critique of the contemporary context that breeds noncommital modes of attention. “The Universe Flickers” was in fact part of “Conversations”—the main exhibition series at SALT Beyoğlu—which “demands in-depth, on-site interactions, and care.”  

The murals of Khan-Dossos, Scenes From A Pre-Crime (Performance for Security Guards) (2018), painted in two separate, otherwise empty rooms, arguably attained public attention with the greatest success, employing color for a direct aesthetic experience to reference that of the palettes of the original ceilings in the former Siniossoglou Apartment that now houses SALT Beyoğlu. Her work was partly performative. Security guards were her only audience as she lathered the walls with paint, positioning the exhibition viewer as a latecomer who must piece together the supposed crime scene after the fact. In this way, Khan-Dossos drew attention to the hidden power relations that shape domestic and public spaces. 

Ünsal occupied SALT Beyoğlu with a personified perspective of the city. Her 17-minute, two-channel video installation Outside Instead Of Before (2018) depicts bleak apartment windows and blends with her sound installation Listening to SALT Beyoğlu (2018), produced in collaboration with Atay Ilgun, of the sounds of the site’s walls, pipes and floors. Hung in the corner of the same room, Prop Surfaces (2018), a rumpled textile with an abstract print, evoked flickering, not of light but of space with its billowy contour. Together, the three components set the scene for a radio drama written by Ünsal, in which the building of SALT Beyoğlu itself is one of the main characters, commenting on Istanbul’s ruinous urban gentrification and channeling the voices that are silenced in the process of the city’s transformation.