Venue:HGB, Room 3.46
As part of the teaching project "Right-wing continuities, the NSU and the present", Cana Bilir- Meier talks about her artistic work at the HGB. One focus will be on her films and her work in the initiative in memory of Semra Ertan.
On Saturday, 24 January, Cana Bilir-Meier will be travelling to Merseburg to visit the memorial plaque she helped design in memory of the murdered Cuban contract workers Delfin Guerra and Raúl Garcia Paret.
Cana Bilir-Meier (*1986 in Munich) lives and works in Munich. She studied art and digital media as well as film and art education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and at Sabancı University in Istanbul. She works as a filmmaker, artist and in art and cultural education projects. Her filmic, performative, installative and text-based works operate at the interfaces of archive work, text production, historical research, contemporary media reflexivity and archaeology. She is co-founder of the initiative in honour of Semra Ertan and co-editor of the poetry collection MY NAME IS A FOREIGNER - BENIM ADIM YABANCI. In 2021 she was a substitute professor for art education at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. In 2024 she was a scholarship holder at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris and in 2025 she received the Art Prize of the City of Munich.
"Cana Bilir-Meier's work operates at the intersection of visual art, film, performance and activist practice. Her works are characterised by a precise aesthetic language and simultaneous socio-political commitment. With great sensitivity and analytical acuity, she addresses issues of remembrance culture, migration, racism, collective identities and resistance. Her work gives visibility to marginalised perspectives and thus significantly expands the canon of German and international contemporary art. All the themes of her artistic activity are of great urgency. Her long-standing commitment to a decolonial, anti-racist and feminist art practice is particularly noteworthy. She succeeds in making complex historical and contemporary realities visible and tangible in her filmic works as well as in installation and participatory formats. Her works encourage reflection without being didactic - they open up spaces for empathy, irritation and transformation. Cana Bilir-Meier is also involved in anti-racist citizens' initiatives in Munich and beyond. She acts not only as an artist, but also as a mediator, in teaching and as a committed citizen. She creates collaborative structures, combines activist, academic and artistic perspectives and thus makes a significant contribution to the further development of contemporary art forms and discourses. She is part of a generation of artists who are working hard to ensure that art not only propagates aesthetic perspectives, but is also available as a driver of social change. Examples of this include her collaboration with the collective "NSU-Komplex auflösen" (2014), the initiative in memory of the writer Semra Ertan (since 2019) and her artistic and activist work to shed light on the racist attack at Munich's Olympic Shopping Centre (OEZ) in 2016, the latter in collaboration with family members of the murdered teenagers."
by: City of Munich
