Evrim Kavcar (b. 1976, Istanbul, Turkey) is an artist academician, working in the sculpture department of Mardin Artuklu University, Turkey. Her practice makes use of tracings, moulds and casts, as well as interviews, visual and sound recordings while studying selected situations to explore layers of memory and forms of relating. Taking off from facts, her work arrives at a half-documentary approach where the gap between fact and fiction reveals what may have been overlooked. Since 2018, Kavcar has been working as a duo with Elif Öner, collaborating on the long-term project Dictionary of Sensitive Sounds, a polyphonic, multiform, participatory process that traces the subjective, social and cultural layers of sound. Her selected exhibitions include the 3rd Mardin Biennial, Mardin, Turkey (2015); D as In Void, Gallery Zilberman, Istanbul, Turkey (2015); SiS Collective, Apartment Project, Berlin, Germany (2016); Hidden in Loss, Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları, Istanbul, Turkey (2016); Dictionary of Sensitive Sounds, PASAJ, Istanbul, Turkey (2019); The Fine Knife We Used to Pare Away the Rough Day, Kasa Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey (2020); Shifting Patterns, Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany (2021); 8th International Sinop Biennial, Sinop, Turkey (2022); Rounded by Sleep, ARTER, Istanbul, Turkey (2022) and I Haven’t Taken an Oath, Barın Han, Istanbul, Turkey (2022).
Elif Öner (b. 1980, Istanbul, Turkey) currently lives and works in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Dichotomies like reality/fiction and nature/culture are major concepts in her artwork and research towards their visual language. Focusing the themes of self-perception and unwritten history, she uses the potential of the unconscious to research the unspoken in her artworks. Since 2018, she has been working as a duo with Evrim Kavcar, collaborating on a long-term project called Dictionary of Sensitive Sounds, a polyphonic, multiform, participatory process that traces the subjective, social and cultural layers of sound in multiple formats. Her solo and duo exhibitions include MuseuMModern, website project, Turkey (2010–14); You Already Know Half Of The Story, artSümer, Istanbul, Turkey (2013); Out of Frame, TAB Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey (2018); Dictionary of Sensitive Sounds, PASAJist, Istanbul, Turkey (2019) and The Fine Knife We Used to Pare Away the Rough Day, Kasa Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey (2020). Her selected group exhibitions include Formless, Santral Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey (2014); Fluid Reality in New Media Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia (2015); Upside Down, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia (2016) and I Haven’t Taken An Oath, Barın Han, Istanbul, Turkey (2022). Öner also participated as a visual artist in the theatre play Silent Migration, directed by Emre Koyuncuoğlu and staged at Theater Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany in 2017.
