Weight of Witnessing
Martin Hodge and Dr Sevgi Kilic
13-30 November

Weight of Witnessing, haunted by the spectre of state violence in the aftermath of Turkey’s 1980 military junta, transforms the human body into a visual metaphor by erasing the boundary between the body, instruments of torture, and violence itself. The works evoke presence and absence, destruction and endurance, confronting viewers with the persistence of trauma as a contemporary, universal, and existential experience.

Survivors of the junta, many now living in exile, embody this paradox: having lived through violence, they endure—marked yet alive. The sculptures and watercolours make visible the residue and sequelae of violence, while also revealing resilience within its shadow. The exhibition insists on memory against erasure, inviting audiences to inhabit the unsettling space where clarity meets ambiguity, and where art and testimony converge to reveal both destruction and endurance.

Weight of Witnessing will be opened by Australian feminist art theorist and sculptor Anne Marsh, currently a Professorial Research Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts. Marsh has published extensively on performance art and feminist criticism, with notable works including Body and Self: Performance Art in Australia, 1969–1992 and Doing Feminism: Women's Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia.