SAHA Talks: Canan Batur & Erica Burini

The first participants of the guest curator program launched at the beginning of 2024 by SAHA and YBYTU (São Paulo), Canan Batur and Érica Burini, will share the experiences they gained throughout the program on Saturday, May 3rd at 3 pm at SAHA Studio!

The program, which aims to foster a creative cultural dialogue between Turkey and Brazil through the in-depth knowledge and collaborative curatorial approaches developed by the participants over the course of ten weeks, also seeks to support global engagement among artists, curators, and contemporary art professionals and to promote intercultural understanding.

About Canan Batur
Canan Batur is a curator and researcher whose ongoing work explores radical emancipatory practices through the imaginal connections between sonic and poetic practices. Her work foregrounds alternative historiographies that unsettle and unearth the unseen and unheard. During the program she joined in Fall 2024, Canan developed a research project that examined the sonorities of the politics of air through artistic practices and imagination in Brazil. This research focuses on how breath—as a fundamental need, rhythmic pulse, and collective act of resistance—is approached in relation to colonial and interconnected ecological legacies, as well as ongoing patterns of behavior.
From 2021 to 2024, Canan served as Curator of “Live Programmes” at Nottingham Contemporary, creating space for live research. She has also developed independent curatorial projects for the Július Koller Society in Bratislava, the 2022 Istanbul Biennial, NTU CCA in Singapore, the 12th Shanghai Biennale, and the 13th Baltic Triennial. She has served on the jury for the Frieze Artist Award 2024 and the NAE OPEN Live Prize 2023. Additionally, she is a founding member and initiator of Museum for the Displaced (2018–2021) and clearview.ltd (2016–2019).

About Érica Burini
Art historian, researcher, and curator Érica Burini’s approach to research is shaped by a commitment to amplifying narratives from the Global South. Her practice emphasizes the critical role of independent and non-profit art spaces in providing platforms for underrepresented voices and innovative artistic practices. In line with this focus, Érica plans to explore artist-run spaces in Turkey during the program she will join in Spring 2025.
Currently facilitating artist support groups under the initiative Clínica Geral, Érica is also part of the management team at Ateliê397, an independent art space in São Paulo, where she develops programs such as Recepção397, aimed at emerging artists. She previously collaborated with Instituto Marco do Valle (2019–2022) and completed the Research and Education Fellowship at IAC.