Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
İsmail Çoban, TR
Ecce Homo, 1992 © İsmail Çoban. Photo. © Manifesta 16 Ruhr / Ivan Erofeev.
İsmail Çoban's artistic work combines European graphic traditions with the visual worlds of Anatolia. In woodcuts and etchings, he develops an expressive visual language that addresses social realities, work and power relations. His figures appear with strongly accentuated gestures and hands that make physical work, dignity and existential experience visible. He uses ornamental motifs from Anatolian textile art function as multi-layered metaphors for tradition, social order and exploitation. Çoban's pictures tell condensed stories about community, memory and resistance and combine symbolism with political and social observation.