Works

Installation view from the group show entitled “Weight of the World” curated by Misal Adnan Yıldız at the Kasa Gallery in Istanbul, 2021

View from of an installation at the Hilton Istanbul that was part of the 17th Contemporary Istanbul Art Fair, 2022

Installation view from the group show curated by Yekhan Pınarlıgil at the Nilüfer Municipality entitled “Look Up, the Starry Horizons of a Limited Geography”, 2022

Installation view from solo show entitled “Extimacy” curated by Nazlı Pektaş at the Merdiven Art Space in Istanbul, 2024

Installation view from group show entitled “Off to Elsewhere” curated by Çağla İlk at the Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich, 2024

Installation view from group show entitled “Queerreality - New Realms of Surrealism” curated by Aylime Aslı Demir & Eva Liedtjens at the Kulturbunker Köln-Mülheim, Cologne, 2024

"You Have a Place Above My Head” Series, 2019 - on going

Using contemporary terminology, the series “You Have a Place Above My Head,” which the artist has been developing since 2019, explores the potential sexuality of everyday objects discovered during walks in Istanbul. The series has been showcased in prominent platforms including Vogue Italia Online (2020), Altiba-9 International Art Magazine, ArtsLibris Fair Barcelona (2021), ARCOMadrid, ARCOLisboa, GUP Magazine Fresh Eyes Talent Book, the Rotterdam Kahmann Gallery’s "New European Photography" group show, and the “The Weight of the World” group show at Kasa Gallery, curated by Misal Adnan Yıldız. In 2022, it was featured in the Nilufer Municipality group show “Look Up, the Starry Horizons of a Defined Geography,” curated by Yekhan Pınarlıgil, and participated in the Republic of Albania International FOKUS awards competition. As of 2024, some images from the series have been selected by curator Çağla İlk for the visual campaign of Munich Kammerspiele.

"Genre painting, in the literature of art history, is defined as productions realized on canvas with paint, presenting everyday life shaped in domestic settings to the viewer. The series departs from the tradition of assigning female figures in genre painting to specific spaces or roles. It visually questions the transformation of the position on the head, which symbolizes the Turkish cultural value of respect and tolerance, into objects of femininity within the domestic space in Turkey, by adopting the visual theme of the saying 'You have a place above my head'. The artist uses random objects that he has found on walks around the city as vehicles to transport his observations. Undefined objects found on the street, a public space, in the context of a home acquire a defined sexuality thus explaining the duality arising from the juxtaposition of linguistics-objects-space. By placing the planned creation of the traditional in the realm of flow, it metaphorically presents the idea of defined sexual identities being in flux to the viewer and invites contemplation upon objects."

Material Witnesses, 2025

1/5

Material Witnesses traces not only a sense of spatial belonging, but also historical imprints, language, and unseen testimonies. In this work, Kır approaches architecturally embedded, Greek-stamped bricks found on the island as cultural archives. These bricks are repositioned not merely as structural elements, but as tangible witnesses to invisible histories and silenced claims of belonging. The artist collects these historical bricks through online auctions and overlays their surfaces with photographs of everyday life selected from the archive of the “Bozcaada Center for Local History Research and Museum.” In doing so, he establishes a permeable ground between the tactile residues of the past and the gazes and bodies that have borne witness across time. Through his method of digital exposure, Kır generates hybrid surfaces that offer a critical interface to the memory of Bozcaada—often approached through lenses of nostalgia or tourism. Rather than fixed identities anchored in place, the artist redefines heritage as a reflection of fragmented memory and shifting histories.This experimental interplay—between photography and archive, building material and trace of life, place and time—reminds us that cultural heritage is neither static nor sealed. It can be rewritten, reimagined, and re-visualized. With Material Witnesses, Berk Kır invites the viewer not only to revisit the past, but to question the very mechanisms through which we see and remember. Oscillating between visual silence and political weight, this work prompts reflection on the fragility and negotiability not only of what has been displaced, but also of what remains.