Pg Art Gallery is pleased to present Ways of Holding On, a group exhibition on view from 17 June to 17 July 2026. Set within a building that carries the layered history of Balat, the exhibition unfolds across three sections: Encounter, Deviation, and Trace. The texture of the space itself, marked by accumulated traces and transformations over time, serves as one of the exhibition’s points of departure. As visitors move through the rooms, they encounter not only individual works, but also a network of relationships that continuously shape and transform one another. Ways of Holding On focuses on the tensions between preservation and fragility, movement and continuity, proximity and distance. While the participating artists work across diverse materials and modes of expression, their practices converge around a shared question: How does something endure? How does a surface, a body, a memory, or a space sustain itself, transform, and leave a trace behind?
Encounter, Deviation, and Trace are not distinct categories separated by clear boundaries. Rather, they are different phases of the same process, constantly shifting and shaping one another.
ENCOUNTER
This section is the starting point of the exhibition . Here, relationships are still being formed, surfaces move closer to, and begin to influence one another. Encounter refers not only to physical meetings, but also to the spaces where gazes, memories, emotions, and experiences come into contact. The relationship between one body and another, one surface and another, or a living being and its environment initiates reciprocal transformation. In this section, encounter emerges not merely as a form of proximity, but as a threshold through which new possibilities begin to unfold.
DEVIATON
After an encounter, nothing remains exactly as it was.
Deviation is the section in which the changes generated through encounters become visible. Here, transformation does not appear as a linear process, but as a series of movements that shift direction, linger, multiply, dissolve, and reassemble. In this section, forms remain in a state of becoming rather than assuming a new and fixed identity. Deviation is understood not as distortion or loss, but as the emergence of new directions and new possibilities.
TRACE
Every encounter and every transformation leaves a trace behind. This section is shaped around the residues that remain on surfaces, objects, bodies, and spaces after every movement and interaction. Here, memory is not understood solely as a mental process; it is approached as a material and spatial accumulation. Trace is considered not as a frozen remnant of the past, but as a mode of existence that continues to live on through transformation.
Artists: Ayla Turan, Ayşe Wilson, Ayşe Gül Süter, Cansu Sönmez, Ceren İren, Emre Namyeter, Derya Geylani Vuruşan, Devran Mursaloğlu, Gözde Can Köroğlu, Hasan Pehlevan, Je M'appelle Macid, Kemal Tufan, Lara Törün, MEMO, Metin Ertürk, Ömer Faruk Yaman, Sevim Kaya, Sinem Demirci
