The Gorki Kiosk opened its series of 5. Berliner Herbstsalon 2021 with a solo exhibition by the Kurdish artist, journalist and activist Zehra Doğan.

On 14 August the artist will be giving a talk in the garden of the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin.

The selection exhibited in the show is composed of paintings, drawings and journals Doğan produced during her three-year-long imprisonment in Turkey. Having been convicted on charges of disseminating «terrorist propaganda» for a single painting she shared on social media, Doğan joined the collective spirit of resistance she found in the prison and turned the imposed conditions of her confinement into a boundless productivity.

Due to the prison administrations` harsh restrictions and lack of any material for artistic practice, she had to improvise with whatever she found inside. Employing the fabric of the clothes that her mother kept bringing during her visits, large envelopes and empty letter pages sent by Naz Öke and other friends, leftover food, the colour of ground spices and her menstrual blood, Doğan's works display her resilience against patriarchal and political pressure and the severe conditions of confinement. The journals and collectively produced and handwritten newspapers included in the exhibition reveal Doğan’s journalistic engagement and her assumption of the role of the witness by chronicling the absurdities of the prison procedures, unjust and chauvinist regulations of the Turkish state, verbal and physical assaults and the consequent acts of solidarity and defiance among the inmates.

Zehra Doğan, born 1989 in Diyarbakır (Turkey), studied Art at Dicle University and is one of the founders of JINHA, the first kurdish news agency by women. Because of a digital painting of Nusaybin, a kurdish town destroyed by the turkish military, she was sentenced to 2 years, 9 months and 22 days imprisonment in Turkey for alleged »terrorist propaganda«. This was met by an outcry of solidarity of international artists like Banksy.

She is recipient of the Metin Göktepe Journalism Award, the Freedom of Expression Award and the Courage in Journalism Award. To this day her works were on display amongst others at the Tate Modern and the Berlin Biennale 2020. Doğan, who in 2020 was included in the Power 100 of Art Review, is artist in residence at the Maxim Gorki Theater since 2021. There she presents here first comprehensive solo exhibition «Prison No. 5» at the Gorki Kiosk.

Artist Talk with Zehra Doğan | 14 August 2021, 7:00 p.m. | Free entry with registration at: [email protected]