Sep 12, 2026 - Oct 10, 2026

MUTE

Elena Papadimitriou

On September 12, 2017, in the brand’s tenth year, Istanbul Concept Gallery opened its doors as “a free space for art,” launching its first season with the exhibition Now We Need New Stories. Since its founding, Istanbul Concept Gallery has opened each new season on September 12, and in its tenth season, it continues this tradition with MUTE.

In Elena Papadimitriou’s previous series, Bouche Fermée, silence was addressed directly through the female figure. In MUTE, this silence transforms within the language of nature. The female figures do not disappear; they turn into ears of wheat. Fragile yet resilient, rooted in the earth and reaching toward the light, the ears of wheat evolve into a metaphor not only for the female body, but also for abundance, resilience, and the continuity of life.

“Sometimes the ears of wheat stand alone, sometimes in groups; they are open to the wind, time, and light. They bend, but they do not break.”

Papadimitriou’s words encapsulate the balance the exhibition establishes between vulnerability and resilience. Representing the solid element, the ears of wheat coexist with the sea and the sky, while silence becomes not a retreat, but a space for pausing, observing, and finding a new voice.

 MUTE is not an exhibition that glorifies silence!

The curator Işık Gençoğlu puts it: “What MUTE proposes is not to remain silent, but to create a new voice from within silence.” Rather than focusing on the victimhood of those whose voices have been suppressed, the exhibition brings into view the will to begin again, to find one’s own voice, and to stand on the side of life.

The intellectual ground of the exhibition opens onto a shared memory that, although shaped by different languages and cultures on the two shores of the Mediterranean, continues to resonate across them. Alongside the roles and silences passed down through generations, this shared memory encompasses joy, mourning, healing, and ways of beginning again; ways of experiencing emotions; and relationships with tables, bread, earth, and water.

MUTE speaks from within this shared memory—not only of our shared wounds, but also of the ways in which we are connected through sustaining life, healing, sharing, and celebrating it.

This framework intersects with Istanbul Concept’s belief that “No life is superior to another,” embracing women, those who are perceived as different, those whose voices have been suppressed, and everyone who stands on the side of nature and life.

Yanındayız (We Stand by You Turkiye) Association as MUTE’s Social Impact Partner

Approaching gender equality as a matter of social transformation in which women and men share responsibility, Yanındayız Association joins Istanbul Concept Gallery as the Social Impact Partner of MUTE. The association advocates for men to take active responsibility in transforming the patterns that produce and perpetuate inequality. The common ground between the association and the exhibition becomes clear in the same call: not to remain within silence, but to transform it.

This collaboration carries MUTE’s artistic discourse onto a broader social platform, bringing together Yanındayız’s network in civil society, the business world, and gender equality with Istanbul Concept’s networks across the art, collector, press, and cultural communities around a shared project.