Sevinç Altan’s second solo exhibition at Galeri Nev Istanbul, This is a Pair of Scissors, will be held from April 9 to May 9, 2025. The show explores the fragile traces of memory, intersecting recollections, and uncertainties, blurring the boundaries between past and present as a reflection of an inner journey.
Although memory enables us to recall past events and experiences, these recollections are seldom linear or complete. Instead, memory is fragmented, much like a mosaic. Over time, memories fade, dissolve, or are reconfigured. Often, a memory consists of only a few striking details—perhaps a sound, a scent, or a fleeting glimpse. This fragmented nature of remembering also shapes how we engage with and interpret our past. As our minds reconstruct specific memories, we perceive them through a lens that evolves over time. When forgotten, lost, or reshaped memories resurface, these details can sometimes astonish or disturb us. At this juncture, memories of the past transform into a confrontation. The mind’s reactions and the potential outcomes are limitless when what has been experienced encounters a newfound consciousness.
Describing her new works as ‘a series of materials I scraped out of myself, driven by an inner necessity,’ Altan characterizes them as ‘an excavation I made toward myself.’ She emphasizes the fleeting traces of memory and the ambiguity that resides in the delicate line between what we remember and what eludes our recall. Through this, she constructs a narrative woven from associations at the uncertain intersection of past and present. In Altan’s works, the viewer is invited to create meaning amidst the fragmented images of the past, the gaps, coincidences, and voids. ‘Each of the things I recalled from various places and times possessed its own unique structure and scent,’ says the artist, pairing distinct moments with each image, sentence, or symbol, and opening small windows into her life through the fragile framework of this fragmented narrative.
The exhibition brings together the ambiguous images of the past through Altan’s narrative, spanning from her primary school to high school years, with clues and phrases guiding the viewer. This is a Pair of Scissors offers an introspective journey into the traces of the past—both lost and rediscovered—unfolding through the continuous flow of time and memory.
*Galeri Nev Istanbul is open for visits between 11:00 AM and 6:30 PM from Tuesday to Friday, and from 12:00 PM to 6:30 PM on Saturdays.
