Born in Ankara, Turkey, Göksu Kunak worked in academia before becoming the self-described anti-fascist performance artist they are today. Driven by a desire to “say something politically,” Kunak’s performances—staged in galleries, theaters, and outdoor spaces—are deeply informed by their Muslim upbringing, as well as the history and politics of Turkey. Several of their pieces have also been infused with soap opera, Martin Scorsese, and Ballardian aesthetics. Immigrating to Germany in 2011 was a turning point in Kunak’s practice: Berlin’s unique atmosphere not only reshaped their understanding of their body and sexuality, but also introduced them to a diverse range of collaborators - from bodybuilders to pole dancers - who now play a vital role in their work.
How did you first become interested in art?
I was really into design as a child. I think it came from an interest in prosthetics: My parents are doctors, and I was really into these objects that they used in their work. I ended up studying interior architecture and took art history classes as part of the course. At the same time, I began dance lessons with my best friend. She was training with one of the pioneers of modern dance in Turkey, Binnaz Dorkip who opened her own studio after leaving the National Ballet. At one point, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to earn money through dance, so I went to study art history full time instead. I did my master’s and started working at the university under the supervision of Zeynep Yasa Yaman.
Performance art shares some similarities with dance but also stands as its own distinct medium. When did you first encounter performance art? What aspects of the discipline resonated with you?
When I decided to stop dancing, I felt a great amount of grief. During my master’s, I was interested in feminist discourses and the body, and so my supervisor pushed me to look at feminist performance art practices from the ‘60s and ‘70s. They made me think, “maybe I can do this instead.” I did not become a performance artist straight away. At first, I was a theorist. Then, in 2016, when I was writing an essay for Ibraaz, I noticed that I felt very bitter writing about other artists’ work. I wanted to make art myself, but I’d been putting the role of an artist on such a pedestal that I thought I didn’t have enough talent.
How did you overcome this self-doubt?
I realised that if I didn’t pursue art, I’d regret it. I also felt an urge to say something, politically. My personality wasn’t suited to activism as I was quite introverted and I realised that art could also be a powerful political tool. Art was what changed my mind about certain areas of Kurdish politics and allowed me to compare what Kurdish artists were saying with what I’d been told by my parents and the government. I really do believe in the power of art to change minds. Maybe a Trump supporter, for example, might not read books about certain topics, but coming face to face with a piece of public art might open them up to new ways of thinking.
How did you transition from academia to having your own artistic practice?
I began to feel very uncomfortable about very formal ways of writing. To me, they supported a certain type of colonial thinking. I started doing lecture performances instead, which I transformed into stories and poems that I would also perform. Then, I realised that there was more within my body. I have this ability to move. Something pushed me in this direction. In 2019, I co-directed my first performance and, in 2021, I created my first text-based evening length piece.
You’re now shifting away from text, right?
Text is still an important part of my work. I often use it as a starting point. For example, my last piece INNOCENCE (2024) opens with a 20 minute long lecture performance that shapes the rest of the experience. But in the last two years, images have become more prevalent in my work. For VENUS (2023), I cut the text very short. I realised that people wouldn’t be able to focus on it. Sometimes I make changes in the moment when I’m performing. Even though there’s a set dramaturgy, if I see something’s not working, I immediately alter it in situ.
You talked earlier about having an urge to say something politically—what messages did you want to share early in your career?
In 2019, I made BERGEN, The Woman of Agonies, a work inspired by a woman called Bergen. She was a very famous Arabesk singer in Turkey whose husband threw nitric acid at her face. Though she was half blinded by the attack, she continued performing. Eventually, her husband murdered her. My piece was about violence against women and LGBTQI+ people in Turkey.
What is Arabesk?
At the same time as many Turkish people started migrating to Germany, lots of people from the Turkish countryside started migrating to bigger cities like Istanbul. It caused a culture clash. The people who migrated experienced a lot of hardship, pain, and difficult working conditions. To cope, they created a new music genre called Arabesk. It was very much influenced by Eastern music and went back to the roots of the Egyptian and Arabic music that came to the region, known today as Turkey during the Ottoman period. Culture in Turkey was, and still is, very mixed, even though in the past the government attempted to focus more on Western influences. At one point, Arabesk music was banned by Turkish national television. It was regarded as against the cultural politics of the nation as it depicted the hardships of this new class in the city. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, Arabesk started to be shown on television and radio. Bergen was the first ever Arabesk singer to be interviewed by Turkish national television. When private television came, Arabesk was everywhere. Now, every song in Turkey uses Arabesk melodies. Sadly, it's commodified intensely. It's become more of a pop genre than the revolutionary movement it was in the past. It’s in every soap opera, played by every bus driver, and listened to by every class. That’s why I work with it.
How do you go about translating large topics—such as Arabesk, as well as other areas of Turkish history, politics, and the LGBTQIA+ experience—into performances and artworks? What does your creative process look like?
In the past, I made work that was very in your face. It was very obvious as to what I was saying. Now, I’m trying to communicate more simply and abstractly. For example, while I may be inspired by images of police violence in Turkey, I may not reference them directly. Instead, I’ll focus on evoking a certain power dynamic. I’ll also add in soap opera or Martin Scorsese style aesthetics to create a more fantasy feel. For example, one image I created in VENUS was of a bodybuilder tied to a sports car stationary on a platform. For me, that was talking about movement, or the inability to move. Two strong, powerful entities that are built for action are prohibited from fulfilling their purpose.
Are there any artists you admire who have inspired this approach?
In 1981, Richard Serra installed his Tilted Arc sculpture at the center of the Foley Federal Plaza. It’s the square in front of the U.S. Courthouse and other government buildings in New York. The whole movement of the space got disrupted and people had to go around the artwork. I think that this was a very political act, to prevent government workers from passing through the square like they were used to. I’m very interested in these subtleties.
You moved to Berlin, Germany from Turkey in 2011. What drew you here?
I was unhappy at work and dissatisfied with Turkish politics. I decided to quit my job and try to move to Europe. At first I considered going to Paris, but then I did some research and found out that Berlin was cheaper. I had no idea about the city, except that it had good dance and art scenes. Luckily, my visa got accepted within four months.
How has relocating to Germany shaped your work?
I grew up very Muslim. My family was secular, but still very conservative due to my dad’s influence. While I thought engaging with dance and art had opened my mind, moving to Berlin made me realise just how conservative I still was, particularly in terms of my body and sexuality. The first time I went to Berghain and saw topless women I thought, “why are they doing this?” Now it’s normal for me. Berlin is a really specific place. Whereas there’s a strong sense of hierarchy in Turkey, here you can just dive into new scenes and worlds.
What scenes are you a part of in Berlin? Who do you collaborate with here?
I have a group of people that I work with regularly. Some of them are professional dancers, but the rest are amateur performers. I really like how this adds a different layer to my work. The first piece I ever made with other people was CLICHE in 2023. It was about the stereotypes Germans have about Turkish men and their cars. I invited Candas Bas, a dancer who is now working with Constanza Macras’ company Dorky Park, to take part. Then, the week before the performance, the earthquake in Turkey happened. Candas, who is also from Turkey, told me that she was devastated and could not do the show. I totally understood. At the same time, I got very sick with a fever. I lost my voice for a week and didn’t have any time to rehearse. So, I called up a friend, my personal trainer Daniel Schabert, an ex-lover named Robin, as well as Nomi Sladko whom I’d met the week before at Trauma Bar und Kino, an arts and club culture space here in Berlin. They jumped in at the last minute and the work was very fragmented as a result. Each of the performers had their own stations. I tied Robin, who’s a lawyer, to a Mercedes, as reference to Chris Burden’s 1974 performance Trans-Fixed (in the original, his lawyer fixes Burden to the car). Choreographer Emeka Ene played a distorted guitar version of Rihanna’s Shut up and Drive, Ahmet Ögüt was interviewed about his immigration on top of the car, my personal trainer skipped repeatedly on top of a pile of flour, and Nomi and I did a Grand Theft Auto-inspired lap dance. It was an assemblage of hyper cliches.
Cars are recurring symbols in your work. Why?
Cars are really important in Turkey. Much like in the US, you pretty much have to have one. When I was growing up, my dad and best friend were both really into cars, and I started racing at a young age. At 16, I wanted to be a Formula One driver. Part of me still has a bit of a fetish for cars, but I also recognise the reality of Turkish car culture—there’s a lot of German lobbyism pushing BMW, Mercedes, and Volkswagen, and the country’s obsession with cars has prevented the government from building better railway networks.
We’ve talked a lot about your performance work, but you also make objects and
installations.
I started by building small installations of objects during my performances. At the end, I’d invite the audience to enter and have drinks inside them. I’m very interested in the nature of black cube (theatrical) and white cube (gallery) spaces. I wanted to experiment with switching between these codes. I make objects in order to tell stories. I obviously tell stories with the body too, but objects remain when the performance is not there. For example, I’m in the process of making Don’t Let Them Shoot The Kite, which will open in April at Kestner Gesellschaft. It will explore themes of erasure, displacement, and visibility, and dive deeper to the medical examinations that German doctors conducted on the Gastarbeiters—migrant workers, primarily from Turkey, who were recruited to fill labor shortages in West Germany during the 1960s and 1970s. I’m making 3D printed busts based on images of people waiting for their tests. I haven’t recreated entire scenes, as I thought that would be replicating the violence of the experience. Instead, I’ve zoomed in, and focused on the gestures they’re making in the photographs.
Have you got any other performances or installations coming up soon?
I’m bringing Bygone Innocence (2024), curated by Léon Kruijswijk, to Kunsthalle Krems as a part of Donau Festival in May. It’s a performance and exhibition about a car crash that happened in Turkey in 1996. In the car, there was someone who was being searched by Interpol, was involved in the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, and was one of the leaders of the Grey Wolves terrorist group. Sitting next to him was the former head of the Istanbul police department. There was also a beauty queen—the girlfriend of the driver—and a Kurdish MP from the right-wing Turkish government.
This was a big scandal in Turkey, known as the Susurluk scandal. For the first time, even nationalists lost their faith in the government. This event reminded me of the writer J. G. Ballard’s 1973 novel Crash. It tells the story of car-crash fetishists who become sexually aroused by staging and participating in accidents. Jean Baudrillard’s Simulation and Simulacra (1981) argues that Crash is a simulacra—it creates a hyperreality where the distinction between real and simulated experiences are meaningless. I thought that this was similar to Turkish politics. Life before the Susurluk scandal was like a fake reality, and a car crash cracked it open.
How do you represent these ideas in the work?
The performance focuses on telling the story of the Susurluk scandal, whereas the installation explores the idea of the simulacra body, or “crashed” body. I do this through the lens of bodybuilding. In order to achieve their physiques, bodybuilders have to tear their muscles, or “crash them”, in order for them to come back stronger. These bodies don’t actually exist in reality. They’re unachievable, as they require the use of steroids. Unrealistic, muscular bodies are seen everywhere, in everything from Greek sculpture to anime shows like Dragon Balls. I’ve created a series of images by taking photos of photos of photos from female bodybuilding competitions. This creates a sort of distortion, and the bodies look almost cyborgian. I made two paintings too—in Krems for the Donau Festival, they will be silk prints in order to vary the texture. One depicts the original Susurluk car crash, but the truck the car hit is erased.
Talking of taking photos of photos of photos… Your performances are heavily
documented by visitors and shared widely across social media. How do you feel about this as an artist? In dance and theatre, it’s usually forbidden to photograph or video performances.
I find it very exciting and interesting to be honest. The day before VENUS was performed at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, I realised that because of the set up of the space, a lot of people wouldn’t be able to see what was going on. There wasn’t anything we could do about it. During the performance, I noticed that the fact that audience members were recording it with their phones was very effective—people further back could see what was going on through the screens in front of them. I even saw videos on Instagram where people had filmed other people’s phone screens!
That mirrors your practice in quite a beautiful way.
It’s like everyone becomes a director of these videos. The piece begins to have different dimensions that I have no control over. Audiences edit the way they see. I like how this plays with codes of behaviour too. Especially in theatre, ‘behaving properly’ is a part of the Western dramaturgy. In INNOCENCE, I give the audience sunflower seeds and say, ‘Please eat, make the space messy, take photos.’ Giving the audience these freedoms shapes the artwork differently.
