Museumnacht — Horror: Made in Turkey
Museumnacht at W139 features a moderated talk and screenings where EMIRHAKIN invites artist Elif Satanaya Özbay to explore the evolution of Turkish horror cinema. Deeply engaged with the horror genre both in her artistic practice and as a personal obsession, Özbay joins EMIRHAKIN in a discussion that connects to the broader themes of the exhibition Remarkable Meetings with Disgusting Men and beyond.
Focusing on the transformation of the Turkish horror genre over the past two decades—from attempts to emulate Hollywood to a distinct emphasis on Quranic symbolism—the conversation will examine how these changes reflect the political and societal shifts within Turkey. The artists will trace these transformations through their personal memories, connecting them to the collective memory of Turkey and its diasporas. By screening excerpts from iconic Turkish horror films, the talk aims to performatively investigate how this genre has been repurposed to serve contemporary Turkish political narratives over the past twenty years.
The night will close with a DJ set by SIGA, who will take us on a worldwide journey through the night, where he will stimulate feelings of celebration and grieve at the same time. Genres: Ambient, Fourth World, Psychedelic Turkish Jazz, Arabic stuff, Teenage Rage, TikTok hits, and more.
If you have a Museumnacht ticket and would like to attend the conversation with Elif Satanaya Özbay and EMIRHAKIN, please RSVP here. Kindly note that the event can only be accessed with a Museumnacht ticket
Tickets are available via the website of Museumnacht.
19:00 Doors open
19:30-21:00 Conversation Elif Satanaya Özbay and EMIRHAKIN
21:30-01:30 DJ set SIGA
02:00 Doors close
Elif Satanaya Özbay is an Amsterdam-based artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans performances, installations, and essays. With a background in film, she draws from her Turkish-Circassian heritage and horror cinema to investigate narrative construction through montage, collage, and scenographic interventions. Özbay’s work reconfigures personal history, folklore, and pop culture, blending the familiar with the uncanny to explore the role of the unreliable narrator. Her layered, immersive works challenge conventional storytelling, creating speculative spaces that question cultural and historical narratives. Through this, she navigates the intersections of memory, myth, and materiality, crafting new meanings from recontextualized objects and stories.
EMIRHAKIN poses urgent yet open questions about the influence of contemporary politics on our human psyche. Navigating through the ever-changing signs and symbols of our times, the artist is mainly curious about the things that are being put in places that they are not supposed to be, serving as reminders that meaning often emerges through this arbitrariness. His practice encompasses the mediums of performance, text, video, and installation, which are translated into visual (and non-visual) indexes. By challenging the bodily experience of the artist and the audience, his long-durational pieces dismantle the predefined ways of observing and performing, consider the space beyond physicality as a negotiation, and resist the constructed idea of time through the modes of queer temporalities.
SIGA will take us on a worldwide journey through the night, where he will stimulate feelings of celebration and grieve at the same time. Expect to stare and browse into your own soul, or maybe Shazam some tunes every now and then. One thing is for sure, you’ll at least have a little dance before the end of the night, because if we don’t dance for our triumphs, who will? Genres: Ambient, Fourth World, Psychedelic Turkish Jazz, Arabic stuff, Teenage Rage, TikTok hits, and more.
Images by Elodie Vreeburg
