Ayzeradant Gallery in the city of Izmir hosted Slow Art Day in April of 2023 bringing the slow art movement to Turkey for the first time.

Performance artist and medical doctor Pınar Derin Gençer, based in Istanbul and Stockholm, was invited to perform her work “Watching the Waves”.

Derin works mainly on performance art, visual arts, installation, writing and objects. According to Performance Art Weekly, her art “studies the relationship between the physical, psychological, historical field of the life, of the nature, of the city and the human.”

Derin is the founder/creative director of Istanbul Performance Art, Stockholm Performance Art and 24 Hours Art, and chief curator of Open Performance Space.

In “Watching the Waves”, the viewer experiences ways of thinking about the times between self and world, sensitive knowledge, and the space between object and world. 

After the performance, the art director of the gallery, Nihat Özdal, hosted a conversation with the gallery visitors on “Slow Art”, in which participants also got the opportunity to reflect together on the performance.

Below are photos showing some of the stages in the performance by Pınar Derin Gençer. Although seemingly simple, the process of actively following the artist drawing lines on the wall becomes an immersive experience.

The name of the gallery, “Ayzeradant”, comes from the “temple of wisdom” sign that the Armenian poet Tıngır hung at the entrance of his house in Buca in the 1800s. Tıngır was found dead in the grave he dug himself in 1881.

At Slow Art Day HQ, we are excited to see Slow Art Day gaining a foothold in Turkey. We look forward to future events from Ayzeradant Gallery, and hope that they will host a Slow Art Day also in 2024.

-Johanna, Jessica Jane, Phyl and Ashley

PS. Stay updated with events at Ayzeradant Gallery via their Instagram page.