SAHA supports Sinopale 10 within the scope of Eylem Ertürk, Ezgi Tok, Çiğdem Borucu, Burak Kabadayı, Kadir Kayserilioğlu, Evrim Kavcar, and Serkan Aka’s new projects. Curated by Deniz Kırkalı, Mariam Natroshvili, Marina Fokidis, T.Melih Görgün, Sinopale 10, entitled At sea, we sense. On land, we reason is on view between 25 September – 15 November 2026.
"To be at sea is to relinquish the illusion of control. There is no arguing with the currents; there is only attention, a bodily, unglamorous knowing that ensures survival at sea. In a time of global polycrises – unevenly distributed and impossible to completely evade – this feels less like folklore and more like instruction. We ask: Can we sense the sea and be sensed by it in return? The question falters immediately, for the sea does not sense us uniformly. It registers the weight of a fishing net differently than a leisure boat, a body that falls in from despair as distinct from one that dives for pleasure. The sea is a political surface, reading labor, precarity, and privilege long before we arrive with our poetic questions.
Sinopale 10 does not aim to resolve this tension but instead sits within it. For the fisherman, sensing is not philosophy but survival, sharpened by interdependence.
This edition holds collaboration as a more-than-human endeavor: with the sea, with its animals, with its songs, with fishermen and marine ecosystems, with architecture, with Sinop’s existing communities. Following the city’s waves, we trace how the sea carries stories, affects, and movements across distance through materials, rhythms, and practices.
Unfolding through informal gatherings, conversations, performances, and an exhibition situated in Sinop, this biennial asks: What does the sea know that reason alone cannot?"
About Sinopale
Founded in 2005, Sinopale, International Sinop Biennial – is the name of an international project that brings together civil society within the context of local development, aiming to foster culture- and art-based dialogue through a model of “sharing-based artistic production.”Formed from the words Sinop and Biennale, Sinopale is not merely a contemporary art exhibition; it is a process-oriented, participatory, and international civil society event. Held every two years, the project aims to encourage city residents of all ages to re-perceive their living spaces with a future-oriented vision, reflect on urban issues, share a common historical memory, and organize this memory toward artistic production. It seeks to support urban, national, and international collaboration in creating a better social living environment.
