Sinop’s biennial to create political art

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Sinop Biennial, which starts on Aug 24, invites artists and curators to deal with the notion of spreading information between politics surroundings in the city of Sinop.

The Fourth Sinop Biennial invites artists and curators to deal with the notion of spreading information through shadows and darkness rather than through light as a response to the existing global politics surrounding development projects in the city of Sinop along the Black Sea coast.

Artists have mainly been invited to produce interactive works which will directly involve Sinop residents. Most of the selected artists will use open source digital technologies. This is not only for practical reasons in producing their art, but also as a show of support for the philosophical standpoint of the open source platform for sharing information and knowledge as opposed to the dominant knowledge production and distribution systems. Participating artists are encouraged to involve the public in their interactive work, which will deal with shadow and hidden connotations. Artists will also provide a variety of workshops to increase public awareness around the decisions about their city, following the prevailing nature of the Sinopale.

This year’s Sinopale exhibition, “Wisdom of Shadows,” was designed to pay homage to one of the cynic philosopher from Ancient Greece, Diogenes of Sinope, who not only defended the importance of simplicity in life but also practiced it in his daily living.

According to myth, Diogenes of Sinope once asked Alexander the Great to stop blocking his sunshine when asked by the ancient king how he could be rewarded. The Sinopale exhibition questions the possibility of creating awareness with the residents of the city to perform a similar gesture toward authorities participating in global politics, disregarding the sustainable life that metaphorically and literally comes from the Sun. The biennial starts on August 24.