Sweet Garden Of Vanishing Desires, curated by Deniz Kırkalı, brings together works by Ülgen Semerci, Deborah Tchoudjinoff, and Olivia Strange. The exhibition examines how pleasure and desire are explored, anticipated, pursued, and expressed in the midst of the multiple crises we are currently experiencing. Considering the impact of ecological crises—across different contexts, scales, and conditions—on all living beings, and in times when loss, grief, and anxiety shape our collective emotional landscape, how do we navigate our conflicting desires? How do we seek individual and collective pleasures while constantly feeling on the brink of disaster and mourning? How do these desires conflict with one another and require the construction of alternative modes of existence?
Focusing on emotions such as love, loss, grief, longing, and pleasure, The Garden of Lost Pleasures assumes that desire is not solely human, singular, or coherent. Pursuing these desires is framed as a form of queer resistance, a post-human proposal for coexisting, a method of remembering what no longer exists, and a way to collectively speculate on the future that demands our confrontation.