The Cannibal Paradox, 2025
The 18th Istanbul Biennial
Acrylic paints, Semitransparent print, 3D printed sculpture, AI generated 3D image
The project features (A, B & C):
A) “Artificial Womb
Project Headquarters”, 2025
B) “Marrow”, 2025
C) Pecking Order”, 2025
Curator: Christine Tohme
“The Cannibal Paradox” uses mythopoetic imagery in which birds, architectural elements, and machines are involved in a metabolic dynamic, a dialogue between hard ornate forms and soft aerodynamic bodies and a dance of death between the breathing, infrastructures, and automation. Shelters and nests become flesh eating cages and songbirds attempt to swallow the means of their entrapment in a series of scenes that span both the outside and inside of the space.
The project builds a dynamic of struggle between refuge, shelter and nurture on the one hand and destruction, violence and barbarism on the other. The key protagonists (forms used throughout the project) of this struggle are different manifestations of songbirds and Istanbul’s famous Kuş evleri (birdhouses), an example of microarchitecture for animals that works across species boundaries within urban space. Other important reference points are the history and folklore of kuş sahneleri (bird singing contests) in Turkey and elsewhere as practiced in public spaces up until today in some parts of the world.
In such forms of urban cultural heritage, birds and people work for each other and informal or semi-formal economies take shape around their activities. Recent research around bird intelligence makes us question the nature of such human-bird relationships, and the idea of domestication.
A) “Artificial Womb
Project Headquarters”, 2025
Walls murals (Acrylic paints)Walls murals (Acrylic paints):
Left
wall, (1180cm X 343cm)Elevator Window, Semitransparent print, (160.5cm X 236cm)Walls murals (Acrylic paints):
Left
wall, (1180cm X 343cm)Walls murals (Acrylic paints): Left wall, (1180cm X 343cm)Walls murals (Acrylic paints):
Left wall, (1180cm X 343cm)Detail. Walls murals (Acrylic paints)Walls murals (Acrylic paints):
Middle
wall, (636cm X 343cm).Walls murals (Acrylic paints):
Left wall, (1180cm X 343cm)Walls murals (Acrylic paints): Right
wall, (1158cm X 343cm).Walls murals (Acrylic paints): Right wall, (1158cm X 343cm).Walls murals (Acrylic paints): Right
wall, (1158cm X 343cm).
B) “Marrow”, 2025
3D printed sculpture (45cm X 42cm X 72cm).
Stainless steel pedestal (50cm X 50cm X 80cm).
3D printed sculpture (45cm X 42cm X 72cm).
Stainless steel pedestal (50cm X 50cm X 80cm).3D printed sculpture (45cm X 42cm X 72cm).
Stainless steel pedestal (50cm X 50cm X 80cm).
C) “Pecking Order”, 2025
AI generated 3D image (177cm x 227cm) vinyl print, Window Façade.