POWERISM: a public game

POW­ERISM is a pub­lic game cre­at­ed by cur­rent Res­i­den­cy Unlim­it­ed artist-in-res­i­dence Hamza Kır­baş. Any­one who wants to play is invit­ed to walk on top of, or try to walk on top of, toma­to paste cans that they hold with strings. The first iter­a­tion of POW­ERISM was con­duct­ed by the artist with a group of chil­dren in Istan­bul in 2018. Click here for more info.

Since the begin­ning of mankind, the exer­cise of pow­er and more specif­i­cal­ly ​“pow­erism,” a dis­po­si­tion that sup­ports the hege­mon­ic influ­ence of one group of pow­ered peo­ple over anoth­er is even more per­va­sive in our con­tem­po­rary soci­ety because it is more invisible.

By devis­ing this absurd game, the artist likens the con­cept of ​“pow­erism” to the metaphor of a street play con­duct­ed by chil­dren and adults. POW­ERISM invites the audi­ence to exam­ine their dai­ly lives where we are at times the play­mak­er and at oth­er times the sub­ject, ulti­mate­ly allow­ing us to ques­tion this process.

This exhi­bi­tion from Res­i­den­cy Unlim­it­ed will take place out­side of KODA House, Colonels Row Build­ing 404B. Click here to learn more about Res­i­den­cy Unlimited.