In their first joint project, the two artists have fused to become one and the same person: the failed but proud alchemist Ahmet Cevdet Bey. In a site-specific installation which includes quaint and kitschy objects collected from the street vendors of Istanbul, Ahmet Cevdet Bey invites us to take a journey into a world where our senses and orientation shift into a new experience, where the borderline between fear, excitement and exhilaration become vague.

As in a hall of mirrors, everyday personal negotiations for recognition and respect, or about right and wrong, are distorted and magnified, along with the general human fear of loneliness, exclusion and alienation. In the work, Ahmet Cevdet Bey presents all these worries and speculations to the viewers, who are invited to find themselves reflected in the tunnel’s polyphonic choir of absurdities, oddities and grotesque banalities.

Both artists work in a wide range of media, and in Tunnel of Fear, Ögüt’s critical and subtly humorous studies of everyday social and political relationships are combined with Erek’s interest in the viewer’s perception and experience of a given space. In a playful manner, the charactistic ‘low budget’ concept of the horror tunnel is informed by the minor troubles of everyday life, as well as issues relating to global economics, transnational corporations and cheap labour.

The exhibition is curated by Celenk Bafra and Kathrine Bolt Rasmussen. The project has been organised in co-operation with the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) and is realized under the auspices of Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the contribution of The Promotion Fund of the Turkish Prime Ministry and the Danish Arts Council’s International Committee for Visual Art.