Water to Water – by Nezaket Ekici

Synopsis

Nezaket Ekici stands with a pedestal on the water. She has a long red costume. Into the costume, 5 water tubes are installed. The costume and the tubes reach the shore. She takes water with a bucket from the sea and cleans the water with a filter to make it drinkable. The water runs through the tubes and arrives at the shore into glasses. Helpers take the water and invite the public to drink.

The idea for this performance derives from a simple differentiation between things, that are existential for our life like water and those things, that are in a way in our possession by means of contingency: can have, must not have. First of all, it is a mindset topic: Nezaket Ekici wants to make people understand, what is at stake for mankind.

But the Performance “Water to Water” (presented the first time at the lake in front of the Haus am Waldsee, Berlin 2015) also considers taking Water as something existential. As water is a limited resource with the biggest potential to become the centre topic for struggles in a future worldwide, we have to find ways to bring it into possession to sustain our lives.

Who is Nezaket Ekici?

Nezaket Ekici is a traveller since childhood. Born in Turkey, she moved to Duisburg in Germany with her family, when she was 3 years old. Since then, she has been living in two cultures, German and Turkish. After finishing an apprenticeship as a printer in Duisburg, she moved to Munich to study painting, sculpture and art education. After that, she went on to Braunschweig to study performance with Prof. Marina Abramovic. Today, she lives with her husband in She lives and works in Berlin, Stuttgart and Istanbul.

Nezaket Ekici works on her intercultural experiences on her world-spanning travels in performance art. Many works are inspired by traditions and behavior in different cultures and living circumstances. She is interested in exchange with different cultures in order to find new ways to live together. She is interested in emphazising the importance of natural resources inside specific works. Water always has been a core topic for her. More than 25 performances of her entire work deal with the topic water.

3 Actions to make people understand the importance of water:

  1. Nezaket Ekici is going to present her performance „Water to Water“ in Budapest at the exhibition site.
  2. Secondly, she will have a workshop with scientists and people who live by the sea and whose lives depend on the sea (proposal: Venice, Italy – because oft the situation of the lagoon). The workshop aims at finding an artistic and practical solution to coping with water pollution.
  3. In step three she will realize an artist talk in a big city (cities with water problems) showing her performance documentation „Water to Water“ and the result of her workshop in order to discuss the future and possible solutions for water pollution.

Biography

From 1994-2000 she studied Art Pedagogy, Art History, Sculpture at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University and at the Fine Arts Academy Munich and got her degree in M.A. in Art Pedagogy. From 2001-2004 she studied Performance Art in the class of  Prof. Dr. Marina Abramovic at the Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Braunschweig. She got her degree in Fine Arts and MFA Degree.

She has presented her work world widely in museums, biennials, galleries and festivals; with a total of more than 280 different performances, on 4 continents, more than 50 countries and 120 cities.

Major Scholarships, Grants and Awards include such as Stipendium aus dem Else-Heiliger-Fonds der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (2002); Barkenhoff-Stiftung Künstlerhäuser Worpswede (2004); Arbeitsstipendium Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn (2005); Arbeitstipendium Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg (2006); Arbeitsstipendium Schloß Wiepersdorf (2007); Arbeitsstipendium Bildende Kunst von Berliner Senat (2010); Culture Academy Tarabya (2013/14); Villa Massimo Rom (2016/17); Finalist Gabriele Münter Preis (2016);

Galleries: Pi Art Works Istanbul/ London; Braverman Gallery Tel Aviv, Israel; DNA Galerie Berlin, Germany;
Aeroplastics Contemporary Brussels, Belgium; Claire Oliver, New York, USA

www.ekici-art.de

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