VAVCD Seminar Series; Dilek Winchester

Dilek Winchester investigates how the printed word and typographic space create a sense of belonging in her research-based art practice. Her interest in the communities formed through publishing ranges from artists’ zines to the hybrid printing culture of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. Her research focuses on alphabet reforms, the symbolic meanings of alphabets, and the politics of translation. In her curatorial work, she has examined artistic practices shaped by experiences of exile and migration.

In this talk, Winchester will introduce her recent projects and discuss a selection of key text-based artworks that have influenced her practice. The emphasis will be on the critical turn in the history of conceptual art marked by Sol LeWitt’s well-known statement, “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art,” quoted from his text Paragraphs on Conceptual Art.

The discussion will be followed by an exercise titled “Instructions, Scores, Recipes and Prompts.”