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MIMIKO
Visual artıst, ıntımate outsıder, subjectıve narrator
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS
About MIMIKO
Istanbul-based Mimiko (1984, Turkey) holds a BA in Photography and Video from Istanbul Bilgi University and an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Working primarily with video and performative works, her multidisciplinary practice explores gender roles, the body, resilience and resistance, power, and violence. In her recent work, waves function as a conceptual framework—understood as bodily, affective and political forces—offering a fluid, ever-changing, interrelational and non-binary way of understanding the world and relationships.
With over fifteen years of experience exhibiting locally and internationally, she gained wider recognition through her video work Earth Fight, which continues to be extensively presented across Turkey, France, Spain, Greece and Italy. In 2024 she was selected for the Cité Internationale des Arts residency in Paris and participated in the 15th Havana Biennial, followed by the 15th Shanghai Biennale in 2025. In the same year, she was invited by the Council of Europe to speak at the World Forum for Democracy.
Currently / Upcoming
15th Shanghai Biennial / China
8 November 2025 – 31 March 2026
Bir Hayat Nefesi, Bodrum / TR
6 March – 8 April 2026
Nouvelles Vagues Group Exhibition, Analix Forever, Geneva / CH
26 February 2026
Group SHow at Villa Datris / FR
15 May – 1 November 2026
RECENT PROJECTS
Artist Statement
Over the years, the body has been central to my art practice: human bodies, migrating bodies, emotional bodies, water bodies…
bodies that struggle
bodies that drown
bodies that float, that survive
bodies that ache, bodies that heal
bodies that kick, that knock over the rocks across millions of human years
bodies that endure
bodies that yearn
My earlier works demonstrate a specific interest in the human body as the most common outward manifestation of the sexual, psychological, emotional and sociological identities. Furthermore, my artistic research is deeply rooted in my own bodily experiences which includes a variety of physical activities such as Muay Thai, snowboarding, wave surfing. My interest in the power (and inability) of the human body (of all forms and capacities) and its potential to be the meditator to connect with non-human bodies grew with the practice of these various physical activities.
bodies that flow
bodies that break
bodies that break free
Refuting heteronormative perspectives and meditating on the complex human-nonhuman entanglements have led me to reflect in terms of interconnections and flows between supposedly separate entities —human and nonhuman— as I have been working towards exploring the expressions of flow or innergy as I like to call it: an amalgam of inner and energy.
Water can be said to be an intrinsic embodiment of the flow and in the new phase of my art practice I’ve been focusing on water-bodies. I’ve been interested in investigating what flow is as a concept that helps represent and interpret the world and relations with a more fluid, ever-changing and non-binary approach.
bodies that wave
waves that embody
Over the years, building upon various works investigating ways to connect to and through the body, my primary objective shifted towards transcending the body and my approach from a solitary practice of contemplating and reflecting towards one that creates collective experiences and knowledges in the new phase of my practice.
