Türkiye

A Kiss on the Eyes by Nilbar Güreş brings together sculpture, installation, painting, video, and mixed-media works on paper and fabric.

Güreş draws on lived experience to address questions of gender, migration, and belonging. Her practice focuses on situations shaped by displacement, racism, xenophobia, and discrimination based on religion and belief, and on how these conditions affect everyday life, bodies, and relationships. Underlying her work is a sustained attention to questions of entitlement and responsibility. As Güreş notes: “It disgusts me when people think they deserve nothing but the best for themselves, because that always comes at the expense of others”. This position informs her ongoing engagement with ideas of privilege, merit, and care.

The exhibition takes its title from the Turkish phrase Gözlerinizden öperim, commonly used at the end of a letter to express closeness without intrusion. In this context, the phrase becomes a gesture directed toward the viewer. The exhibition unfolds through spatial relationships rather than a linear narrative, with works remaining close to the ground, leaning, hanging, or hovering. Echoing the Biennale’s theme In Minor Keys, the exhibition embraces subtlety as a form of political strength, foregrounding care as a way of relating.