Mona Mahall / Asli Serbest
Asli Serbest and Mona Mahall work in collaborations across spatial, image, sound, and text practices, at the intersection of art and architecture. They often begin their projects by investigating minor finds, fragments, figures, sites, and rites that exhibit discrepancies, but imply spatial agility and generosity, as well as poetic and political possibilities. Whether it be in the form of installation, model, video, sound, exhibition, or publication, all their projects follow a feminist methodology. As such, they constitute less fixed spaces and objects than non-linear physical or digital versions and speculations that share an interest in serial variation and possible distortions of form and scale. They play and replay architectural histories, events, and movements and rethink the re-production of space and implied power relations. The aim is to collectively (re-)consider rejected knowledge and to find alternative modes of organizing our lives, schools, online and offline movements. Serbest/Mahall exhibit and publish internationally, including at the Biennale di Venezia, Ural Biennial, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien Berlin, Riverrun Istanbul, Württembergische Kunstverein Stuttgart, Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, Storefront for Art and Architecture New York, HKW Berlin, Vancouver Art Gallery, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, New Museum New York; in e-flux journal, Volume Magazine, Perspecta, Istanbul Art News, etc. They are the editors of the independent magazine Junk Jet. In 2019, they curated the 7th International Sinop Biennial under the title of “A Politics of Location.” They live and work in Berlin.
