“WHAT DID WE MISS? | “MERVE ELVEREN IN CONVERSATION WITH XENIA KALPAKTSOGLOU

What did we miss?

Curators Merve Elveren and Xenia Kalpaktsoglou will trace the evolving trajectories of cultural institutions and independent practices since the mid-2000s, raising a series of questions: What hopes and promises shaped these institutional transformations and independent initiatives, and how far have we strayed from those aspirations today? To what extent did infrastructural blind spots, administrative pitfalls, economic uncertainties, and the very idea of sustainability contribute to this drift? Where do institutions and independent practices converge and diverge, and what asymmetries shape their relationship? In today’s polarised political climate, how can we question institutional rigidity/constraints while sustaining cultural institutions as spaces for free thought and critical action, where these are under threat? As founders, participants, and audiences of these structures—whether small, medium, or large in scale—what did we miss?