Led by Zeynep Sayın and coordinated by Ezgi Bakçay, YUNT presents the programme titled The Void of the Image, running from 4 November 2026 to 1 August 2027. Starting with an open lecture delivered by Sayın, the programme expands through exhibitions, events, and workshops, interpreting the image as “the last common” that reminds us to breathe.

 

The intellectual trajectory shaped by the 65-week podcast series The Dignity of the Image, which addresses the image as a method of resistance within the context of social developments, forms the foundation of the open lecture guiding the programme. Transcending conventional spatial boundaries and enriched by every new encounter and discussion, the open lecture explores various manifestations of the image while collectivising the creation process of an image atlas that traces Türkiye’s optical unconscious.

 

Within the scope of The Void of the Image programme, the exhibition Water Cycle, taking place at YUNT from 7 November 2026 to 5 March 2027, will be followed by The Last Common: Breath, running from 27 Mart 2027 to 1 August 2027. The events and workshops accompanying the exhibitions extend from YUNT’s venue into the public space, multiplying the ways the programme can be experienced.

 

With its potential to destabilise the foundations of linear ideologies and create a void within the political economy of representational mechanisms that cause breathlessness, the image lies at the heart of the collective thinking and liberation practice proposed by the programme:

 

The image was a memory of breath, a phantom of breath, recalling not only what has already come to pass, but what is yet to be, and perhaps what will never be. Unbound by any core of imitation, elusive as energy set loose in space and matter, the image was an aberration that sabotaged a power structure struggling to represent; it was high time its dignity was restored.— Zeynep Sayın

 

Instructor: Zeynep Sayın

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Born in Istanbul in 1961, Zeynep Sayın is a literary theorist, art theorist, and academic. She studied literary theory, art history, and philosophy in Istanbul, Salzburg, and Vienna. In addition to various universities in Istanbul, she has worked at the Faculty of Architecture at Mardin Artuklu University and at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna. Recently, she has been lecturing at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig (as an honorary professor) and at the University of Art and Design Linz. 

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Her published books include Mithat Şen ve Bedenyazısı (Kaknüs, 1999), Noli Me Tangere (Kaknüs, 2000), İmgenin Pornografisi (Metis, 2003), Kötülük Cemaatleri (Tekhne, 2016), and Çizginin Boşluğu (2025).

 

Coordinator: Ezgi Bakçay

 

Born in Istanbul in 1980, Ezgi Bakçay completed her undergraduate studies at Galatasaray University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Cinema and Television. She holds a master’s degree from Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Sculpture, and a PhD from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Department of Sociology. Since 2006, she has been teaching “Art Theories”, “Methods of Analysing Artwork”, and “Visual Culture” at Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts, as well as “Art Management” and “Visual Culture” at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University.

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Working within the independent culture and art initiatives Karşı Sanat Çalışmaları and Kültürhane, Bakçay continues her work as an independent curator and writer at the intersection of aesthetics and politics.