Odeabank O’Art Brings Its Exhibition “IŞIKLIK / SKYLIGHT” to Senkron​

O’Art, Odeabank’s art platform, will participate in “Senkron,” a concurrent exhibition dedicated to video art in Turkey, featuring Özge Topçu’s site-specific installation titled “Skylight.” Curated by Begüm Güney, the digital installation at Kılıç Ali Pasha Bath will be showcased on the Odeabank website until May 15, 2021.

With pandemic restrictions limiting public gatherings, Odeabank O’Art is presenting its second exhibition of 2021, titled “Skylight,” to art enthusiasts online. In the exhibition, Topçu integrates digital art into a site-specific installation. The artist reconfigures and engages with the 4D hypercube, a geometric form she has explored in her recent works, at Kılıç Ali Pasha Bath.

Topçu’s light sculpture, nominated for The MAC International Art Prize, the U.K.’s second-largest art prize, transforms form projections with light at the Kılıç Ali Pasha Bath, where it is being exhibited for the first time. In modern geometric terms, this form is a star derived from a 4D tesseract. Throughout the series, the artist uses this form to address the resurgence of the “Flat Earth” theory, an idea that lacks a basis in reality. She strips it of all subjective connotations, reducing it to horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines. Exploring the star motif common in Seljuk, Ottoman, and traditional Turkish architecture, the “Skylight” installation in the Kılıç Ali Pasha Bath was designed with these architectural elements in mind. Embracing a more expansive approach, the installation’s relationship with the site is enriched by its historical context and the preserved memory of the location. With her exhibition “Skylight,” Topçu attempts to reveal the reasons behind this return in epistemology in the form of an exploration of the elements that constitute the environment and social structure in opposition to the “Flat Earth” theory.

Commenting on the exhibition, Topçu said, “As the power of those who hold data increases, the demand for knowledge and wisdom—the most meaningful forms of data—is steadily declining. I envisioned the skylight of the bath as a portal between the earth and the sky. An interface where the boundary between public and private becomes permeable.”

Curator Begüm Güney said: “We could also respond to the transformation of ‘scientific knowledge’ researched by Özge Topçu with the ‘post-truth’ phenomenon. This phenomenon refers to a context where ‘truth and reality’ (factual reality) lose their relevance and significance. Through this online exhibition, Topçu seeks to ‘know,’ understand, and comprehend within new contexts, creating a hybrid space at the intersection of historical, social, and physical environments from both the past and present.”

Özge Topçu’s work in the “Skylight” exhibition will be transformed into NFTs, the artistic expression of blockchain technology. The exhibition will be accessible 24/7 on the Senkron website at www.senkronvideo.art until April 30 and on the Odeabank website at www.odeabank.com.tr and Odeabank's social media accounts until May 15.