Ayşe Hilal MENLİOĞLU AKÇELİK (b. 1990, İstanbul), has received her BSc. and MSc. degrees from Istanbul Technical University Interior Architecture department and Architectural Design program. She pursues her doctoral studies within the same program. She spent three years as a researcher at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. Her main research topics include nomadic thought and gender in architectural design theory and critical design approaches. She works as adjunct design studio instructor at Kadir Has University and Bilgi University, Istanbul. She completed the seminar program Contemporary Art and Curatorship by Akbank Sanat and Açık Diyalog Istanbul in 2024, and looking forward to translating her conceptual research into practice within the field of contemporary art.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to live unaffected by global catastrophes on an individual scale. Ultimately, everyone is in motion; masses are fleeing climate crises, disasters, wars, economic recessions, inequalities, and urban reconstructions. We migrate, move, and settle either voluntarily or out of necessity.
Meanwhile, advancing technologies and viruses have been displacing work itself; as the number of digital nomads, remote workers and home-office workers grows, so does the number of those living far from both their homes and workplaces. In such a state, how can individuals connect with themselves, their bodies, their spaces, and perhaps most importantly, with one another, without relying on notions like property and stability?
The exhibition Nice to Move Out focuses on artistic subjectivities’ expansions through work, content, and space, taking contemporary conditions as its starting point. Feminist theorist Rosi Braidotti’s theory of nomadic subjectivity, which she has been developing since 1994, offers a promising approach to these questions. According the Braidotti, in an era where fixed identities are becoming obsolete, she proposes a subjectivity that embraces being in motion and values the fluidity of identities. Female and feminine nomadic subjectivity is in constant flux among various identities, observes points to pause in its continuous movement and values the changing nature of motion itself. This understanding of subjectivity allows for the critical and creative coming together of undetermined situations and heterogeneous becomings. It replaces binary oppositions with multiplicity; rejection gives way to constructive acceptance, and linear progress transforms into a zigzagging path. In a sense, it is a proposal for displacement, both mentally and emotionally.
The exhibition explores the multiple meanings of artistic identity and investigates the reflections of nomadic subjectivities in contemporary artistic practices. It uncovers artists’ methodological and tactical explorations concerning themes of displacement. It examines how artists, viewers, spaces and bodies redefine one another while in motion.
Recognizing that nomadism is not always a desirable condition, Nice to Move Out explores the critical possibilities that movement enables. The exhibition offers a thought-provoking proposal on the personal and collective meanings shaped by today’s pressing realities, where opportunities for rootedness are scarce. By fostering deeper connections between spaces, bodies, and temporalities, the exhibition creates a platform for unforeseen relationships to emerge among subjects, concepts, spaces, and bodies. In doing so, it challenges the fixed subjectivities and identities often found in art production, opening the way for alternative perspectives and interpretations.
One of the exhibition’s core objectives is to reveal the relationships between different subjects such as the artist, the viewer and the curator. Active participation of the audience is thought as the central generator of these relationships.
Nice to Move Out brings together works by Ruben Bellinkx, Volkan Dinçer, İnci Eviner, Dora García, Nilbar Güreş, Cem Örgen, Anna Talens, and Pim Palmsgraaf, spanning a range of media, including installation, video, and photography. Each piece offers distinct approaches while collectively questioning the rigidity of so-called fixed boundaries. They invite audiences into both a physical and mental state of movement, revealing the dissolution of entrenched methods, embodied norms, and conceptual fixations. Together, these works propose a hopeful process of becoming within motion—a creative and critical reshaping of identities, assumptions, and dualities, free from the constraints of settlement.