Erdem Taşdelen

Rooted in conceptualism, Erdem Taşdelen’s multidisciplinary practice brings self-expression into question within the context of culturally learned behaviours. The Curtain Sweeps Down is a book adaptation of the artist’s 2017 mixed media installation with the same title, and explores the story behind a novel published in Turkey in 1950. The project offers a semi-fictionalized narrative of the events surrounding the publication of this novel through a constellation of images and text, and looks at how womanhood is figured in the Turkish collective imaginary. An assemblage of found images, archival material, news headlines and texts written by the artist, The Curtain Sweeps Down underscores the systematic ways in which certain voices are muted while others are permitted to enter into the mainstream, and considers self-concealment as a strategic tool to advance progressive politics in environments where open dissent may be too risky.