Exhibition: Nobody was a Foreigner - Kağan Güner Paintings
"When 2 million people marched against the war in February 2003, I felt we were one. Nobody was a foreigner in that rally”
Those were Kağan's words to Socialist Worker Newspaper in 2006. The tags (so-called identities) obscure the essence. Ethnic, political, and gender tags limit who we are. All tags point to foreigners. They refer to what we are and what others are not. Kağan had a "refugee" tag living in Britain. Had another "Turkish artist" tag. Not mentioning other tags followed each one of us. All his artistic creation was to construct a language that defies tags, that dethrones "the other". In his paintings, all worlds melt into one colour palette that represents the oneness of cultures, worlds, and stories. It can be said that all he wanted to convey with his art is "Nobody is a foreigner". We are one!
Join us to open the exhibition with a panel discussion and drinks/nibbles.
Timings:
6:00 Doors open
6:30 Welcome & Introduction (Banu Aydinoglugil - NGMH Heritage Programme Manager)
6.35 Yaprak Guner (exhibition curator/Kagan Guner`s Partner)
6.40 Short film about Kagan Guner
6.45 Temmuz Guner (Kagan Guner`s son-moderator) introducing the panel
6.55 Emre Akbil seminar: Urban Commons and Collective Vulnerability
Emre Akbil is an architect, urbanist and educator working with minoritarian and commons based pedagogies and spatial practices. Emre is the co-leader of the MA in Urban Design Programme in Sheffield School of Architecture, University of Sheffield.
7.15 Ufuk Genc (psychotherapist/filmmaker) Kagan Guner`s close friend
7.25 Closing remarks from Temmuz Guner
7.30 Exhibition