Public Talk "CrossSections" with Basak Senova, Barbara Holub, Isa Rosenberger, Andrea Löbel and Klaus Schafler (Kunsthalle Exnergasse), 11th April 2019. Photo: dieAngewandte
Basak Senova´s curatorial, process-oriented, cross-cultural initiative “CrossSections” is a project that has evolved under her direction since 2017. The project was designed as an interdisciplinary platform for explorations into artistic research, dialogue, and production. The project employs an open format to reflect upon “process” with the intent to articulate critical reactions to the political, economic, and social disturbances facing us today. Over the course of three years (2017–2019), with the participation of 19 artists, diverse scholars and cultural workers, various meetings, workshops, exhibitions, performances, talks and book launches are being held in three cities: Vienna, Helsinki, and Stockholm.
Senova is also working on a large scale exhibition entitled “Climbing through the Tides” with the participation of 51 artists and some collectives for the Kamel Lazaar Foundation’s (KLF) first permanent project space, B7L9 in Tunis where she has focused on composing the display of research-based artistic methodologies in a specific setting.
By developing alike projects, Senova aims at creating a collective, interdisciplinary research platforms and networks; she has set out to propose a curatorial model that prioritizes the “process” of artistic research and production and its presentation; and she seeks to share and elaborate diverse critical reactions and collective strategies in the context of art.
During her residency from during the summer term 2019, Senova will present her projects at the Angewandte through talks, screening programmes, and workshops and will discuss them from cross-departmental perspectives. In the framework of the Angewandte festival in June 2019, she will put it into practice in collaboration with the university’s Institute for Art Sciences and Art Education.
Basak Senova is both a curator and a designer; she has a highly interdisciplinary training and practice. Senova studied Literature and Graphic Design (MFA in Graphic Design and Ph.D. in Art, Design and Architecture at Bilkent University) and attended the 7th Curatorial Training Programme of Stichting De Appel, Amsterdam.
As an assistant professor, she lectured in various universities in Turkey and in 2017 she was the resident fellow at the University of the Arts, Helsinki in co-operation with HIAP and also the same year, she received Associate Professorship in Fine Arts by the Higher Education Council of Turkey.
Her teaching also extends internationally in the framework of seminars and educational-turn exhibition projects. She has held the position of Director NOMAD, which was the first organization (Istanbul-based association) in Turkey with a special focus on digital culture, sound-art and digital-minded productions for a number of years. She curated the pavilions of Turkey and Republic of Macedonia at the Venice Biennale (2009 and 2015). She co-curated the 2nd Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-0 ARK Underground (Bosnia and Herzegovina); curated the Helsinki Photography Biennial 2014; the Jerusalem Show VII. Fractures; and acted as the Art Gallery Chair of (ACM) SIGGRAPH 2014 (Vancouver).