Thematic Seminar Cihad Caner

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Trim1 Thematic Seminar - "Is it Possible to talk about Power and Violence without showing their depictions?" lead by Cihad Caner

Image credit: Cihad Caner 2019.

Is it possible to talk about power and violence without showing their depictions?


The thematic seminar will question mainstream image-making methods and the dialogues they generate, for and around, socio-political subjects. It intends to challenge the linear, one-sided narrative we are fed by popular media. During the seminars, we will be exploring the politics of the image through different historical and contemporary examples. It will follow an approach that offers to be critical to make sense of “how we comprehend information we receive every day”, to find novel methods and tactics when practicing art related to politics, sociology, and philosophy, to be able to gain response-ability towards the hi(story) and our contemporary time.


The thematic seminar aims to create a base of an understanding of alternative forms of expression on socio-political subjects. The base will help students to merge and incorporate their practice into deeper and wider personal reflections. This seminar series will consist of topical reading groups, reading artworks from various artists and artist talks as well as group critiques.


Based between Rotterdam and Istanbul, Cihad Caner (b. 1990) works primarily with photography, video, CGI, and sculpture. His work examines quotidian objects and their positioning within the image culture; portrayal of the “other” in various media; and global urgencies shaped by wars, immigration, and resistance. Caner’s recent work has been exhibited at the Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki; the Hong Kong Arts Center; the Art Museum of the Nanjing University of the Arts; the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik; Galerie BOHAI, Hannover; Kasseler Kunstverein; Corridor Project Space, Amsterdam; Blitz Malta, Valletta. Caner has been an artist-in-residence at the ARCUS Project in Moriya (Japan), and received the Mondriaan Fonds Jong Talent grant in 2018. He holds a Master’s in Media Design and Communication from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam.
www.cihadcaner.com