Cigdem Aydemir: Whirl

Whirl centres on spirituality as a force that exists both in its own right, and as something that can be (mechanically) produced—like a simulacral spirituality. As the artist, I position myself in-between the undulating veil and the hairdryer that represents my will. Both are constantly moving, and being moved.

Whirl borrows from the hyper-real aesthetics of shampoo commercials, which often use the language and image of liberation to sell their products. As a personal anecdote, the encouragement I received immediately after unveiling, led me to believe that removing the veil is perceived as a shampoo commercial type experience—which it was not. Whirl explores that memory, while throwing into question the inherent assumptions between unveiled/liberated/beautiful and veiled/oppressed/abject.

Exhibited in CCP’s Night Projection Window 7 nights a week after dark.

Cigdem Aydemir is a Sydney-based artist working in the mediums of installation, performance and video art. Her socially and politically engaged art practice investigates possibilities for intersubjective and transcultural communication with an interest in post-colonial and feminist issues. Much of her work expands on the veil as a culturally constructed site and as material realisation, while exploring the veiled woman cipher as resistant female other and as lived experience. Through critiquing, decolonizing and queering mechanisms, Cigdem questions established relations of power, while producing work that is driven equally by research, play, criticism and humour.

Cigdem was the 2013 recipient of the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize in the Emerging Artist category, and the Edna Ryan Award for Creative Feminism in 2012. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally receiving support and opportunities from Australia Council for the Arts, Arts NSW, Ian Potter Cultural Trust, Freedman Foundation (Travelling Arts Scholarship), Performance Space (Sydney), Salamanca Arts Centre (Hobart), and Vryfees (South Africa).