Performance:
In Vain
Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu
Salt Beyoğlu
March 7, 2025 19.00
Still from the performance In Vain at the Pickle Bar, Berlin, 2022
Photo: Franzi Kreis
Photo: Franzi Kreis
“Sea Snotting or Nothing Less than Flamboyant in the Salty Waters of Istanbul“—one of the five research strands in Water Assemblies—kicks off with Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu’s performance In Vain at Salt Beyoğlu. The year-long research will draw from a series of performances that focus on water ecologies, infrastructures, and the phenomenon of sea snot, aiming to lay the groundwork for performative experiments as a tool for collective imagination.
Taking its title from a folk song by Âşık Mahzuni Şerif, In Vain invites participants to create a collective anthology of poetry in the âşık tradition. During the performance, participants will divide into four groups and engage with stories told by narrators from various periods in history. Each group will settle into one of four designated areas within the space, immersing themselves in a particular story, while simultaneously hearing fragments of the other tales. A long-lost sea, a medieval oceanographer, a 20th-century poet, and a contemporary writer intersect at the ominous sign of a recent climate crisis: the appearance of sea snot in the Sea of Marmara in the summer of 2021. As the performance unfolds, a live narrator will interrupt the recorded stories with a narrative that ties together the sea snot and the extinction of life in the Sea of Marmara. Following the live narrator’s guidance, the performance will conclude with the creation of the collective poetry anthology.
In Vain premiered in 2022 at the Slavs and Tatars Pickle Bar with the production of the Vienna Festival, and was later presented in Turkish with production by Protocinema. The iteration at Salt Beyoğlu will take place on Friday, March 7 at 19.00. Following the performance, Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu will be in conversation with Aslıhan Demirtaş, who leads this research strand.
A selection of publications, along with the poems produced during the performance, will be on view in the research space at Salt Beyoğlu until March 22.
The performance will be held in Turkish and is open to all. Participation is limited to 60 people.
Onur Hamilton Karaoglu produces works in theater, performance, and video. Since 2010, his original and adapted writings and directing pieces have been commissioned and presented by festivals and institutions such as Wiener Festwochen, Dancing on the Edge, Media Art Xplarotion, and Volksbühne. His installations and video works have been featured at the Sharjah Biennial, SPOT, Operation Room, and Protocinema. Karaoğlu is a founding member of Studio 4 Istanbul, which produces theater and film works, as well as the performance space KÖŞE, which later evolved into an international performance festival. He served as the director of the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul from 2014 to 2019, and has lectured at Boğaziçi University and Koç University. He holds a BA in Sociology from Boğaziçi University and an MFA in Theater Directing at Columbia University.
Taking its title from a folk song by Âşık Mahzuni Şerif, In Vain invites participants to create a collective anthology of poetry in the âşık tradition. During the performance, participants will divide into four groups and engage with stories told by narrators from various periods in history. Each group will settle into one of four designated areas within the space, immersing themselves in a particular story, while simultaneously hearing fragments of the other tales. A long-lost sea, a medieval oceanographer, a 20th-century poet, and a contemporary writer intersect at the ominous sign of a recent climate crisis: the appearance of sea snot in the Sea of Marmara in the summer of 2021. As the performance unfolds, a live narrator will interrupt the recorded stories with a narrative that ties together the sea snot and the extinction of life in the Sea of Marmara. Following the live narrator’s guidance, the performance will conclude with the creation of the collective poetry anthology.
In Vain premiered in 2022 at the Slavs and Tatars Pickle Bar with the production of the Vienna Festival, and was later presented in Turkish with production by Protocinema. The iteration at Salt Beyoğlu will take place on Friday, March 7 at 19.00. Following the performance, Onur Hamilton Karaoğlu will be in conversation with Aslıhan Demirtaş, who leads this research strand.
A selection of publications, along with the poems produced during the performance, will be on view in the research space at Salt Beyoğlu until March 22.
The performance will be held in Turkish and is open to all. Participation is limited to 60 people.
Onur Hamilton Karaoglu produces works in theater, performance, and video. Since 2010, his original and adapted writings and directing pieces have been commissioned and presented by festivals and institutions such as Wiener Festwochen, Dancing on the Edge, Media Art Xplarotion, and Volksbühne. His installations and video works have been featured at the Sharjah Biennial, SPOT, Operation Room, and Protocinema. Karaoğlu is a founding member of Studio 4 Istanbul, which produces theater and film works, as well as the performance space KÖŞE, which later evolved into an international performance festival. He served as the director of the Museum of Innocence in Istanbul from 2014 to 2019, and has lectured at Boğaziçi University and Koç University. He holds a BA in Sociology from Boğaziçi University and an MFA in Theater Directing at Columbia University.
