22 March – 7 May 2005 The Sorting Office 8 May – 26 June 2005 Locations around London The area known as Küba first emerged in the late 1960s as a neighbourhood of safe houses in a dangerous time. In today’s Istanbul, few people could tell you exactly where it is: some say Küba lies in the southern part of the city, close to the airport, others doubt whether it still exists. Today Küba comprises a few hundred makeshift clapboard dwellings that are still home to non-conformists of diverse ethnicity, religion and political persuasion united in their defiant disregard for state control. Kutlug Ataman spent more than two years exploring Küba, mapping its physical and psychological terrain through the lives of forty inhabitants whose remarkable stories are the foundation for his most ambitious artwork to date. Initially uprooted in October 2004, the forty residents of Küba first appeared in Pittsburgh where Ataman’s multiple DVD installation – a commission for Artangel – won the prestigious Carnegie Prize. From 22nd March 2005, the Küba community took up temporary residence in The Sorting Office on New Oxford Street in London from where, up until 1995, almost two million items of post were delivered every week. During May and June the residents of Kuba temporarily dispersed to other homes in London including the Salvation Army HQ, Wormwood Scrubs, Ealing film syudios, Amnesty International Head Office and the Great Eastern Hotel. After London, Küba will travel to a railway station in Stuttgart, down the Danube to Vienna and disembark at a passenger ferry terminal on Circular Quay in Sydney before returning home to Istanbul in 2006.
Co-produced with Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (T-B A21), Vienna; Theater der Welt, Stuttgart and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Film production by Yalan Dünya, Istanbul. Küba is funded by Arts Council England with the support of Film London and the special help of Anita and Poju Zabludowicz. Artangel gratefully acknowledges the generosity of Consolidated Developments, Morley and Electra who have kindly provided the London location for Küba. Artangel is supported by Arts Council England, London; The Company of Angels and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Artangel is a registered charity no. 292976    |
