At ReMap3, Kalfayan Galleries will present a  solo show of the performance video of Tayfun Serttaş titled ‘The Other The Other and Beyond’ (2005).

Tayfun Serttas’s performance video “The Other The Other and Beyond” (2005) is composed of recordings in thirty buildings that have been abandoned by Istanbul’s minorities. These forsaken buildings in the city’s historical centers, with their sculptural silhouettes, hold a special place in the urban memory although they are no longer in use. Legal battles persist over the property that was once owned by the Greek, Armenian and Jewish communities of Istanbul. Simultaneous to the video, cooking and sharing in homage to an old ceremony, the artist explains:

“Allegory, as a visual and literary method, is based on the representation of situations, people and objects in different forms through fiction. The main difference between this fiction and other fictions is that it refers to itself in the most indirect way by creating coherence outside the story which it tackles.  And in situations where it is impossible for the narration to be direct, allegory steps in as a necessary mechanism rather than an artistic choice.”

“The Other The Other and Beyond is a decryption that I dedicate, based on selected details of my personal life history, to all personal life histories. It belongs to the projection of my personal struggle against an opposite allegory of a historical reality that for many years I was permitted to fictionalize only allegorically. ”

Artist, writer and researcher Tayfun Serttaş (Born in Turkey, 1982) lives in Istanbul and Bodrum. His installation-focused work is often formed of the multilayered engagement of various media including ready-mades, found objects, sculptures, videos, photographs, artist’s books and drawings around a documentary theme. The artist graduated from the Istanbul University Social Anthropology Department in 2004 with a thesis on “Urban Anthropology”. He completed his masters at the Yıldız Technical University Art and Design Faculty Interdisciplinary Art program in 2007 with a thesis titled “Photography And Minorities In Istanbul In The Context Of Modernism And Cultural Representation”. Since 2000 he has taken part in numerous academic projects, both in Turkey and internationally. Themes he works on include urban anthropology, social gender, the cultural heritage of the other, the critique of civil society, the sociology of everyday life, minorities, urban transformation, sex workers, immigration and change, socio-political strategies and minor politics. Residencies: AIF Residency Program, Arab Image Foundation (2011, Beirut , Lebanon); Accented Residency Program, The Delfina Foundation (2010, London, United Kingdom); Istanbul Artist Residency Program, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center (2009,  Istanbul, Turkey)