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ORGAN VIDA 2018



ULLA DEVENTER — Butterflies Are a Sign of a Good Thing

Exhibition period: 10th of September to 21st of September
Opening times: Mon-Sat 12- 8PM
Opening: 10th of September 20.00
Artist talk: 10th of September 20.00
Location: Gallery GretaCurators: Klara Petrović, Luja Šimunović

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WOMEN’S PERSPECTIVES — conference on contemporary photography

Date: Friday 14th September 2018
Time: 3 — 7.30 PM
Location: Cinema Europa
Open to the public

PHOTOGRAPHY, ETHICS AND THE OTHER: 16:30 – 17:45h
speakers: Nina Berman, Ulla Deventer, Laia Abril and Sandra Vitaljić

The panel will focus on the role of photography in articulating women’s experiences, in connecting the personal with the historical and the cultural. We want to see how photography is being used and how it can be used to foreground oppression, discrimination, stereotypization and dehumanization. Also, we want to explore the difficulty of representing the lived experiences of marginalized subjects, regardless of the imagery being fictional or documentary. We want to raise questions about the responsibility, consent and anonymity involved in the artistic production and dissemination. Our aim is to show and discuss artistic practices that present new understandings of ethics, rights, otherness, power, and agency in relation to photography. 

BUTTERFLIES ARE A SIGN OF A GOOD THING // MELIKE BILIR // HAMBURG



opening: Friday, August 10th 2018, 7pm

SATTELITE SHOW OF THE TRIENNALE DER PHOTOGRAPHIE HAMBURG

EXHIBITION: 11. – 29. August 2018
FINISSAGE WITH TALK AND SURPRISE  AUGUST 29th 2018, 7pm
supported by: RUDOLF AUGSTEIN STIFTUNG // BILD-KUNST // ROYAL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS ANTWERP
Galerie Melike Bilir
Admiralitätstraße 71
D-20459 Hamburg
opening hours wed-fri  3-6pm
Sa 2 – 4pm and by appointment

Ulla Deventer‘s multimedia exhibition at gallery MELIKE BILIR is the first solo show of “Butterflies Are a Sign of a Good Thing”, her recent artistic research about young women who work in prostitution in Accra, the capital of Ghana. The artist befriended a number of female sex workers and spent a lot of time with them. As part of a highly stigmatised peer group, they are dealing with prejudices and social exclusion, in addition to coping with the daily hardships of a poor existence.  Ulla Deventer’s empathic interpersonal relationships with her subjects, based on trust and respect, are instrumental. Apart from her photographs, this new body of work includes drawings and objects, realised in collaboration with the women. Thus, a multitude of narratives emerges that express the sex workers’ own perspective on their lives, their feelings and their bodies; and articulate their struggles and their hopes. By constructing these life stories in such a nuanced manner, Deventer achieves to step over the existing barrier of preconceived ideas of this subject, and ultimately counters the stigma. Already in her series “I‘ve Never Been Big Sick”, initiated in 2013, Ulla Deventer focused on the personal stories of female sex workers in several European capitals. After regularly encountering women with West-African roots over the years, she eventually decided to travel to Ghana to further explore the subject. Holding a Master of Fine Arts, Ulla Deventer is currently researcher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Her work was shown internationally and won several awards. Recently it was selected for the „Ones to Watch 2018“ of the British Journal of Photography. by Tom Nys