Tactics of Invisibility will follow the traces of an aesthetic of the invisible and question its potential as a political tactic of intervening into societies that are structured around ready-made identity imperatives and a commodification of subjectivities. The exhibition is not a chronological survey of contemporary art in Turkey, but it brings together a variety of artistic positions from almost three decades yet not necessarily iconic works that mark the development of a local context. Instead it underlines a specific concern that links each individual artist’s production through common strategies of becoming or revealing the hidden, marginalized, repressed, and invisible in order to render certain realities visible.
Tactics of Invisibility will include works from pioneering figures such as Sarkis, Füsun Onur, and Ayşe Erkmen, whose earlier works and practices paved the way for a dynamic context for contemporary art in Turkey with the politically and socially engaged art practices of the 1990s, a critical period in which discourses such as multiculturalism, identity politics, migration, and minority politics came to the foreground. Even though the artistic practices of İnci Eviner, Kutluğ Ataman and Hale Tenger have been nourished within this energetic and vibrant context, the exhibition avoids a tendency to represent certain periods with certain works and shows a broader interest in the more recent production of the participating artists, including the younger generation, represented by Cevdet Erek, Ali Kazma, Esra Ersen, Nilbar Güreş, Nasan Tur, Nevin Aladağ, Ahmet Öğüt, xurban_collective and the artist initiative Hafriyat. > >

As one of its essential elements, the artist conceived of the pavilion’s sonic identity. The Morning Line is saturated with fifty speakers, using a unique interactive computer controlled sound system, conceived and implemented by the Music Research Centre of York University.
For the presentation in Istanbul guest sound curator Russell Haswell has invited Jana Winderen, Peter Zinovieff, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, and Yasunao Tone to conceive new acoustic works, commissioned by T-B A21. As The Morning Line continues to travel the world as a platform for contemporary music, and within its mandate to encourage and support the production of innovative composition wherever it tours, T-B A21 has entered a partnership with MIAM – Centre for Advanced Studies in Music, Istanbul, under the guidance of Melih Fereli, former director of the Istanbul Festival, Kamran İnce, and Cihat Aşkın and has commissioned new compositions by Erdem Helvacıoğlu, Cevdet Erek, Batuhan Bozkurt, and Mehmet Can Özer.
These eight new compositions will be presented as world premieres in Istanbul, during the festival that will follow the opening ceremonies on the 22nd of May and run for the rest of the week. They will be added to the existing archive of music and soundscapes selected by the previous guest curators Florian Hecker and Byce Dessner. These include collaborative works by Bryce Dessner in collaboration with David Sheppard and Evan Ziporyn, Mark Fell in collaboration with Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, Jónsi & Alex, and solo compositions by Bruce Gilbert, Florian Hecker, Lee Ranaldo, Chris Watson, and Thom Willems.> >