Abdulkerim Karaoğlu
Abdulkerim Karaoğlu is an architecture graduate, a multidisciplinary researcher, and an emerging curator.
Born in Istanbul in 1997, Karaoğlu completed his primary, secondary, and high school education in Istanbul. After graduating with honors from the Department of Architecture at Bursa Uludağ University, he was admitted to the integrated PhD program in the Department of Architectural History at the same university. In his ongoing doctoral research, he focuses on the concepts of interaction and visitor experience in exhibition spaces.
In addition to his academic work, he has taken active roles in research- and practice-based projects in line with his interest in the field of culture and the arts, particularly in content production, exhibition space design, and curating. These projects and roles include exhibition installation assistance and guiding within the scope of the IV. International Istanbul Triennial (2022); exhibition installation assistance for the shows Sıradaki Şarkı – Nermin Er (2024), Geçen Program – Can Aytekin (2024), and Sokağın Direniş Hafızası – Orhan Taylan (2024), organized by Nilüfer Municipality; and project coordination for the exhibition Peki Ya Sonra? organized by KültürAkt under the curatorship of Dr. Derya Yücel.
To deepen his knowledge in the curatorial field, Karaoğlu completed the Curating Contemporary Art Program organized in collaboration by Akbank Sanat and Açık Diyalog İstanbul, graduating with his project titled “Göçebe Olmak: Hareketin Sürekliliği ve Arafta Olmanın Durağanlığı” (To Be Nomadic: The Continuity of Movement and The Stillness of Being in Limbo). He is currently pursuing his PhD research and continues to take an active role in various exhibitions, events, and projects in the field of culture and the arts.
To Be Nomadic: The Continuity of Movement and The Stillness of Being in Limbo
The exhibition situates itself in the tension between the continuity of movement and the stillness of being in limbo, at the intersection of those who are everywhere and belong nowhere.
The human being, as a temporary form of life, spends their time on earth trying to find their way – just as the very notion of a “journey” implies. This journey has neither a clear starting point nor a definite destination. Woven with uncertainties, this process is not only a state of physical movement, but also a mental and emotional condition of “perpetual nomadism”.
Places change, time flows, faces fade, voices dissolve into a distant hum; yet the human’s nomadism continues to exist “somewhere out there” — both somewhere outside and within an inner void.
Nomadism is a mode of existence that oscillates between settling and leaving, attachment and rupture, belonging and alienation. It is not merely an outward lack of direction, but an inward tension. In the nomad’s reality, the freedom of movement and the constriction of not finding a place become intertwined. The desire to move on and the feeling of being trapped in an in-between space are now inseparable — like two sides of the same coin. One feels incomplete without the other. This state is not a choice; it is, more often than not, an unavoidable psychic oscillation.
So, what is this state of “to be nomadic”? Is it the freedom of being able to be everywhere? The burden of belonging nowhere? Or the captivity of trying to feel at home everywhere in the world while never being able to put down roots? These questions define the conceptual ground that regards nomadism not merely as a transitional phase, but as a lasting mode of being. For some journeys exist not to end, but to continue. Perhaps what we call a journey is, in fact, a state of perpetual motion in which we are constantly running away from ourselves.
The exhibition situates itself in the tension between the continuity of movement and the stillness of being in limbo, at the intersection of those who are everywhere and belong nowhere. It makes visible those who walk the fine line between “being a citizen of the world” and “escaping oneself”. It invites us to reflect on those who are always setting out yet never arriving anywhere, those who, always dreaming of being elsewhere, cannot hold on to the now.
And what about you? Have you truly arrived anywhere, or have you only lost yourself in motion?