Istanbul-born and Stockholm-based artist, Meriç Algün Ringborg uses the differences and total opposites between two cities as an inspiration and main theme of her installations. She questions issues of identity, borders, bureaucracy, language barrier and translation through the ready-made texts, archives and common objects. Focusing on the actual subject of immigration, Ringborg has explored visa procedures and application forms and made a dictionary of all the common words in Swedish and Turkish languages.
Ringborg was born in Istanbul, in 1983, where she studied at the Department of Visual Arts and Communication Design at Sabancı University. Continuing her education and earning her master degree in Fine Arts at the Royal Academy in Stockholm, she did the project for her graduation exhibition named The Library of Unborrowed Books. Taking the example of the Stockholm Public Library, she made an installation from the 600 titles that nobody ever borrowed. Since her first solo shows in 2013 at Galeri Non in Istanbul and Galerie Nordenhake in Stockholm, Ringborg has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the USA, including 56th Venice Biennale in 2015 where she participated as one of three artists from Sweden in the main exhibition All the Worlds Futures.
In 2014, Ringborg has had a solo exhibition at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, titled Becoming European. Drawing the inspiration from the personal experience of movement from the non-European country, she exploited her own encounter with the different culture and foreign language, aiming to show all difficulties and strange situations faced by people of other nationality. All over the museum space were panels with the inscriptions from the visa application forms, various personal questions, sometimes confusing and unpleasant. She also made a dictionary and the sound works with the 1270 word meaning and spelling of the Turkish and Swedish.
Meriç Algün Ringborg belongs to the group of the young and successful artists with the strong attitude and clear idea about the message that her art transfers. As a foreign student in the European country, she experienced the problems of unfamiliar surroundings, different culture and language, bureaucracy and endless paperwork, and above all, search for own identity and chance for a new life. Although her work questions the borders, it does not know that kind of limitations, considering her success and numerous exhibitions even across the ocean.
Featured image: Meriç Algün Ringborg – Souvenirs for the Landlock, Installation, 2015
All images courtesy of the artist
Year | Exhibition title | Gallery/Museum | Solo/Group |
---|---|---|---|
2016 | The Artist | National Museum, Stockholm | Group |
2016 | Towards a Larger World | Moderna Museet, Malme | Group |
2016 | Swedish Art: Now | Sven Harrys Konstmuseum, Stockholm | Group |
2016 | Watched | The Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg | Group |
2016 | Identity. Behind the Curtain of Uncertainity | National Art Museum of Ukraine, Kiev | Group |
2016 | Remember Lidice | Stadtische Galerie Nordhorn | Group |
2016 | Memory and Continuity | Pera Museum, Istanbul | Group |
2016 | After Alexandria | the Flood, Recai Mehmed Efendi Library, Proto5533, Istanbul | Group |
2016 | Displacement | Akinci Gallery, Amsterdam | Group |
2015 | A Work of Fiction (Revisited) | Kunstverein Freiburg | Solo |
2015 | Remember Lidice | Edition Block, Berlin | Group |
2015 | Where do we migrate to | Varmlands Museum, Karlstad | Group |
2015 | Meshes of the Afternoon. The School of Landscape. A part of Kyiv Biennial | Kunsthall Trondheim | Group |
2015 | All the World's Futures, 56th Venice Biennale | International Art Exhibition | Group |
2015 | SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms | 14th Istanbul Biennial | Group |
2015 | Reading Between Not-Straight Lines | Academiegalerie, Utrecht | Group |
2015 | Insecure Scaffolds | Hollybush Gardens, London | Group |
2015 | Between the Pessimism of the Intellect and the Optimism of the Will | 5th Thessaloniki Biennial | Group |
2015 | Every Inclusion is an Exclusion of Other Possibilities | SALT Beyoglu, Istanbul | Group |
2015 | Bulusma… Reunion | Sakip Sabanci Museum, Istanbul | Group |
2014 | Becoming European | Moderna Museet, Stockholm | Solo |
2014 | A Work of Fiction (Revisited) | Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin | Solo |
2014 | Uprisings | MOSTYN Llandudno, Wales | Solo |
2014 | Liberdade em movimento | Fundacao Ibere Camargo, Porto Alegre | Group |
2014 | The Material of Words | Sobering Galerie, Paris | Group |
2014 | A Thousand Doors | The Gennadius Library of American School of Classical Studies, Athens | Group |
2014 | Ir para volver (Leaving to return) | 12th Bienal de Cuenca | Group |
2014 | You Imagine What You Desire | 19th Biennale of Sydney | Group |
2013 | The Apparent Author | Galeri NON, Istanbul | Solo |
2013 | A Work of Fiction | Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm | Solo |
2013 | The Library of Unborrowed Books | Art in General, NYC | Solo |
2013 | A Hook or a Tail | Frutta Gallery, Rome | Solo |
2013 | Women's Art Society | MOSTYN, Llandudno, Wales | Group |
2013 | Signs Taken in Wonder | Kunstverein Hannover | Group |
2013 | Regrese Manana (Return Tomorrow) | MAZ - Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Jalisco | Group |
2013 | Shadows of a Doubt | Talinn Art Hall | Group |
2013 | AB, a project by Gabriele De Santis | Nomas Foundation, Rome | Group |
2013 | The Nordic Model | Malme Konstmuseum, Malme | Group |
2013 | ABCDEFGHI | Marabouparken, Stockholm | Group |
2013 | BiennaleOnline: Reflection & Imagination | World Wide Web | Group |
2013 | Sequences | Reykjavík | Group |
2013 | Transposed Order | IASPIS Open House, Stockholm | Group |
2013 | When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes | Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit | Group |
2013 | Signs Taken in Wonder | MAK, Vienna | Group |
2012 | Becoming European | Wunderkammer, Meessen De Clerq, Brussels | Solo |
2012 | Prompts and Triggers: Meric Algun Ringborg, Line No.2 (Holy Bible) | Witte de With, Rotterdam | Solo |
2012 | Which No One Will Ever See | Galleri Mejan, Stockholm | Solo |
2012 | Incremental Change | Galeri NON, Istanbul | Group |
2012 | When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes | CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco | Group |
2012 | Show Off | Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia | Group |
2012 | Detective | Andreas Huber, Vienna | Group |
2012 | Memory of Present by coup de dés | Lietzensee, on Kuno-Fischer-Strasse 3, Berlin | Group |
2012 | Show Off | Malme Konsthall, Malme | Group |
2012 | Har har man alltid med sig | Stockholm Music and Arts Festival, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm | Group |
2012 | An Incomplete History of Incomplete Works of Art | Francesca Minini, Milan | Group |
2012 | Graduation Exhibition: The Library of Unborrowed Books | Konstakademien, Stockholm | Group |
2012 | Germans, Speak German | CCA, Glasgow | Group |
2011 | Travelogue as Allegory – Artists´ books as a modern form of the production of desire | Konstakademien, Stockholm | Group |
2010 | The Concise Book of Visa Application Forms | Gallery Naïve, Stockholm | Solo |
2010 | Danforedanforedanforedan | Index - The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm | Group |
2010 | Open Studio Exhibition | Villa Iris, Botin Foundation, Santander | Group |
2010 | Qui Vive? 2nd International Moscow Biennale for Young Art | Moscow, Russia | Group |
2010 | The Spring Exhibition | Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen | Group |