Ahmet Öğüt on The Silent University and School of Urgency

The Silent University, whose locations include London, Athens and Hamburg, was founded in 2012 by Ahmet Öğüt, a visual artist from Diyarbakir. It provides an independent knowledge exchange platform by and for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, seeking to reactivate the participants’ knowledge and skills that they are unable to use due to their residence status. The platform offers an academic programme with lectures, discussions, etc. In 2012, Öğüt was awarded the Visible Award of the Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto and Fondazione Zegna for "The Silent University".

Ahmet Öğüt was born in Diyarbakir in 1981. He studied art and design in Ankara, Istanbul and Amsterdam. Today he lives and works in Istanbul, Amsterdam, Berlin and New York. In 2009, Ögüt represented Turkey at the 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennial with "Exploded City". Öğüt views his studio as a place of reflection on and experimentation into what art is, can be and can create.

"In his ten years as a practicing artist, Öğüt was himself a kind of nomadic artist, without physical studio. His studio was the conceptual place of the spiritual, which he took with himself from Istanbul to Helsinki, Amsterdam and Berlin. With his production of the 'LOFT' spirit, Öğüt transformed the Gallery Wedding into his studio of work in June 2016. Studio Öğüt was a place for sharing, working, learning, preserving, spending time, getting together, thinking, meeting, cooking, celebrating, producing and presenting. He will not only radically question the importance of studios as a reference point and basis, but also question the artist's creative process." (Galerie Wedding, 2016, curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung)

The artist talk on 2 April will be conducted by the curator Solvej Helweg Ovesen.

In cooperation with