Ceylan Öztrük

Call me Venus aims to banalise the male interpretation and discourse on the female body; as the Venus figurines become objects of pleasure, the woman’s
being able to please herself with the ‘image of a woman’ is emphasized. The Venus statuettes are re-interpreted by Ceylan Öztrük in Call me Venus, and are
re-produced. The Venuses are charged with a new interpretation, liberated from the realm of the patriarchy, becoming objects of pleasure for women.

(From the exhibition text: Ceylan Öztrük, Call me Venus, Mars, Istanbul, 2016)

Overall, Call me Venus is the research and production process in which Ceylan Öztrük focuses on history, the writing of history, and the patriarchal nature of historicization.

Throughout the different phases of this process, different media, disciplines, and spaces have been used since the first exhibition display. The project looks at womanhood within the frameworks of historic knowledge and contemporary practices. While criticizing male intervention, it emphasizes the necessity of female intervention.

Ceylan Öztrük is a Turkish artist who lives and works in Zürich. In her artistic practice, Öztrük investigates accepted forms of knowledge and written history. Öztrük’s point of departure is where knowledge originates. She looks into the Patriarchal nature of history to change the course of direction and reverse the structures of power by replacing the existing history with another.

For Floating Art – Cry Me a River, Öztrük has contributed with two projects that connects and frame the other works involved. One is the visual identity
based on her Ph.d. project on different Venus depictions throughout history. The famous goddess, seen in both paintings and sculptures, have a history of
male interpretation and a certain discourse on the female body, which Öztrük re-writes and fusion with the concept of the exhibition.

The other project is the modified pedal boat seen on the fjord, which connects the sci-fi narration of the exhibition, and refers to the concept of the coral
ships of Venusmira. The audience can have a trip on the fjord with the pedal boat and experience the world of the other works involved in the exhibition.

The pedal boat is hereby offering a sensual and different dimension of the exhibition, which mimics the life of the wet planet Venusmira, where solidarity
and new ways of sensing and perceiving are the core.

Photo: David Stjernholm