“Lapses” consists of two art projects: “Exploded City" by Ahmet Ögüt, and "CATALOG 2009" by Banu Cennetoglu, which both reveal the possibility for diverse memory formations – or diverse narratives - conceivable through lapses.

Ahmet Ögüt traces buildings that have recently been the site of a crucial event and have turned into ruins, thus triggering associations in our subconscious. “Exploded City” presents a model city by referring to the original architectural features of each building. The work questions the significations and values attributed to these buildings before and after the explosion, while detecting lapses that occur in our memory via media images. It also manifests otherwise concealed lapses by ripping the buildings off their memory. In viewers' minds, this research may find openings similar to Borges' forking paths, Calvino's fictions of imaginary cities, and Toufic's ruins.

"CATALOG 2009” holds to the fact that photography, extracted from the reality in which it was shot, is not only expected to exist in a new subjective and critical context, but also to become the bearer of expression for this new context. Banu Cennetoglu’s photographs pertain to different geographies whilst simultaneously being open to fictional narratives. The work is presented in the form of a performative “mail order catalog” where hundreds of photographs are classified under subjective categories. The artist will allow free download of all the photographs from the mailing catalog exclusively during the duration of the Venice Biennial. This process also signifies the questioning of the dissemination of artwork and photography as extracts of memory.

The Pavilion of Turkey is designed to be a straightforward, self-standing building at the Arsenale. This scaffold building functions as an interface to present these two projects with the intention of both separating and intersecting them in a subversive manner.

extract from the catalogue text by Basak Senova.