BANABAK is an artist collective composed of Asli Aktug and Irmak Canevi. In partnership with Dilara Z. Moran and thanks to Doğan Timurlenk’s generous contributions, their ambitiously ‘un-ambitious’, sincere and playful first project comes to life at a frame shop owned by Timurlenk Cam, founded in 1950 in Beyoğlu.

Within the ‘framework’ of their project also titled “BANABAK” (“Look at me”) the collective reinstalls a selection of work handpicked out of an archive of thousands of paintings collected by Doğan Timurlenk, a true patron of the outsider artist, and examines a novel approach to presenting such selected work based on ‘visibility’ and ‘display’. On some level the artists also see their project as a curatorial exercise. BANABAK engages in excavating Timurlenk Cam’s invaluable ‘memory bank’ and focuses on Timurlenk’s earnest passion for paintings. The collective investigates Doğan Timurlenk’s genuine poise in the art world to get to a place where contemporary art meets local art.

The duo mischievously ‘hack’ into work that is not their own creation and treat them as raw material to create new work. They see this whimsical scheme as a lighthearted gesture in their thriving local art scene.

Paintings are exhibited where they are ‘found’. The complex relationship between a painting and its frame is therefore investigated at the rightful address where the framer meets the artist at a space where there unique environments converge. The fabric of the frame shop serves as background thus underlying the effect of the exhibition space on the art work on display.

Finally, ‘look at me’ becomes a motto for the artist and the art work alike and just when the collector and his collection are about to vanish in their locality BANABAK asks what it is to be local in the age of global art.