Pilevneli Project hosts photography artist Silva Bingaz in its new project. The works of Silva Bingaz in her project titled “Coast of the East” consist of the photos she took in Tottori, Japan. Mostly including the portraits of people she encountered in daily life, those works act as a part of the “Coast” project started by Bingaz in 2002.
Photography of Silva Bingaz does not only present a dramatical structure but it also reveals an intense and unfixed feeling. Although the photos taken by the artist in various places of the world reflect the distinctness of those places in the context of time and space, they basically unite by touching the common existential forms of the human beings. So what is the difference in all those photos? Focal point of the works of Bingaz is shaped around the sensuous and intuitive differentiations rather than visual and formal differences encountered in her works. Therefore, going beyond depicting a region, the photography of the artist attempts to reach the most similar and most instinctive forms of existence.
About Silva Bingaz:
Silva Bingaz presented her first works to the audience in 2001 with her transparent show titled “Where, if not at home?” This show also set the starting point for her three-year project on Beyan, who is an Iraqi woman immigrant. Within time, her dialogues with various masters of photography from different countries have shaped her knowledge on technical and aesthetic issues as well as her competency on exhibiting. These dialogues have also helped her raising her consciousness regarding today’s photography.
Having attended Anders Petersen’s workshop in 2002, Bingaz continued her works in Petersen’s camera obscura in Sweden in 2006. She participated in workshops on production and critical thinking in France and in many other other countries, where she had the opportunity to work in close contact with prominent photographers. How those workshops and the dialogues she maintained with the masters of photography raised her consciousness can be traced in layers especially in her project named ‘Coast’, which she started in 2002.
Collected works from her series “Coast” were exhibited in Istanbul Depo (2007) and Kalfayan Gallery (2008) in Thessaloniki. Another project titled “EU Women” she took part in, was exhibited in Lodz, Paris, Seville and New York in 2007. The same project also appeared in the show “Mahalle” which was held within the scope of İstanbul 2010 – European Capital of Culture by Genis Aci Project Office.
Having been invited to the program, titled “European Eyes on Japan”, Silva Bingaz was hosted in Tottori, Japan in 2010 with photographers Andreas Gefeller from Germany Gábor Arion Kudász from Hungary. The photographs produced by the artist in Japan were both exhibited in Japan and published in a book. Those photographs were also exhibited in İstanbul within the scope of Istanbul 2010 – European Capital of Culture. Bingaz also participated in the exhibition “Journeys: Wanderings in Contemporary Turkey” which examined contemporary Turkish art. The exhibition was held at Louis Vuitton’s cultural centre Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton in Paris at the end of 2012.
“Coast of the East” can be viewed at Pilevneli Project between 21 February – 16 March 2013.