Sibel Yücel
Born in 1980 in Istanbul. Sibel studied Business Administration at Galatasaray University and graduated in 2003. Upon graduation, she worked at various managerial positions in the private sector such as consultancy, telecom, and energy. She lived in Dubai and London for a while. She has travelled to all corners of the world, for business and pleasure. Witnessing the unifying effect of art, especially during her travels to Africa and Asia, brought her closer to art. She has reinforced this interest with seminars and trainings she has received in many local and international art institutions since 2014. She continued to improve herself in this field by getting mentorship from Prof Dr Esra Aliçavuşoğlu.
Due to her interest in history and archaeology, she also started her second university education of Cultural Heritage in 2019 at Istanbul University. In addition, in 2019, she completed the certificate program "Preservation and Recovery of Archaeological Assets", offered by Koç University and prepared within the scope of the SARAT Project. She has successfully completed the Curating the Contemporary Art Seminar Program organized by Akbank Sanat and Open Dialogue in 2021.
Common Humanity
Not being able to achieve desires and goals, disappointments, pain, and suffering are human experiences experienced by almost every individual in the world, and in fact, they are the common experience of all people.
The fact that some of the negative situations that human beings go through are not specific to their own life and that they are a part of all humanity, and that individuals may make mistakes or be inadequate from time to time, are defined as the "Common Humanity" in the philosophy of Self Compassion, which is one of the modern psychological approaches.
Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.”
Epictetus, The Art of Living
In the recent period when global disasters such as pandemics and climate crises were experienced, we have witnessed that human beings have been pushed into a deep pessimism and despair in the circle of feelings of inadequacy. The feeling of being imperfect or inadequate, while increasing the pain felt, has also dragged many of us into loneliness.
The Common Humanity describes as considering the individual's own experiences as part of the common experiences of humanity rather than being personal, isolating and embarrassing. Conscious acceptance is the conscious acceptance of painful thoughts or feelings rather than causing over-identification.
Reaching the awareness that the pain caused by the factors that individuals experience because of the difficulties they are in and especially the factors that they cannot control, can be experienced universally, alleviates the pain. In fact, this phenomenon was examined centuries ago by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus and stated as one of the advice for happiness.
This exhibition accompanied by the teaching of the concept of Common Humanity, invites people to be grateful for existence by reminding that these bad feelings are experienced by all humans.