The Whole Planet was Inside

Founded in 1976, ‘Maçka Sanat Galerisi’ was one of the iconic venues in the history of art in Turkey. After hosting many avant-garde exhibitions and celebrating its fortiethyear, the gallery was closed in 2016. Three years later, Maçka Sanat Galerisire-opensits doors, albeit briefly, with the exhibition “The Whole Planet was Inside” organized by ‘Galeri Nev’. The exhibition, which is listed as one of the parallel events of the 16th Istanbul Biennial, will be open from September11th to October 19th. Curated by Deniz Artun, the exhibition “The Whole Planet Was Inside” is inspired by the ecological focus of the Biennial and explores how we can exist in other worlds, if/when one day this world becomes completely uninhabitable. In the exhibition, a different universe is being created with living creatures who are completely stripped of their own skin and are prepared to leave their familiar bodies behind in order to take on or to rather become other bodies. In the universe of the exhibition human beings are planets and planets are human beings. The works are there to remind us that all the worlds that we build and destroy are within: ‘inside’. In the centre of the exhibition there is a triptych by Candeğer Furtun, one of reknown artists of the Maçka Sanat Galerisi. Furtun is surronded by several artists from Galeri Nev, each from a different generation. In this way, the works, the artists and especially the two galleries reveal the particular and common aspects of their mutual histories and salute each other.