Marina Papazyan
Marina Papazyan is an artist and writer. They thread together semi-fictions about themself by way of writing, voicing and recording. Their works rely on the body as a source of grammar where it is mainly through pores, cavities and intestines that the world is sensed and told. Their texts reflect a sense of self that is fragmented, speaking through multiple channels with varying degrees of confession and contradiction, scarcity and disguise. During the BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice, Marina will focus on monstrousness, specifically as it appears in gothic /+ pulp literature and cinema. They will be searching for more embodied interpretations of the ghost: monsters and creatures whose stories evoke questions on health and sickness; misdiagnoses, pain and pleasure; dysphoria and envy. They will explore the kinds of vitality the ghostly subject —who is absolved of their rights to their own bodies, time and/or space— may acquire by re-enacting their resentments, desires, fears and monstrousness through haunting as a way of thinking, telling and strategizing. Most recently, they had a solo exhibition: Haemoglobins & Ants, poşe, Istanbul, 2021; and had works shown in Finding a Cure in Istanbul, Karşı Sanat – Yaklaşım Tüneli, 2021; Flesh & Bone, Operation Room, Istanbul, 2019. Marina lives and works in Istanbul, and is part of the Istanbul Bienali Research and Production Program, Istanbul, in the Fellowship for Situated Practice.