International artists explore fragmented Middle East in Istanbul

The first image that appears on screen is that of a boy mimicking the overflight of planes. He then pretends to be armed and searching for a village, throwing hand grenades and raking a target with bursts from a machine gun. Deaf and mute, 13-year-old Mohammed escaped from Kobani, in northern Syria, shortly after Islamic State fighters seized it in January 2015.

In the short video by Erkan Ozgen, a Turkish-Kurdish artist from Diyarbakir, Mohammed uses his body to express the violence he has witnessed. When he concludes his on-screen narrative with a swift hand movement that indicates a decapitation, a half-suppressed scream arose in the darkened room where a dozen people breathlessly watched. As the audience got up to leave, one young man remarked, “Perhaps a good neighbor is simply one who doesn't kill you.”

The short video, ironically titled “Wonderland," is one of the most political works in the 15th Istanbul Biennial, a contemporary art exhibition held every two years in Istanbul. This year's theme is “A Good Neighbor,” a deceptively simple, yet emotionally charged proposition in a region where neighbors are divided by ideology, ethnicity, religion and politics.

“Since we chose the title, there has not only been a coup attempt in Turkey, but the world witnessed the aftermath of the Brexit referendum and [Donald] Trump being elected US president, in part by promising to erect a border wall between the Unites States and Mexico,” said curator Michael Elmgreen, of Elmgreen & Dragset, at the opening press conference for the biennial on Sept. 12. “A good neighbor may sound banal, but there are many issues underlining the phrase, almost as if there is a question mark at the end.”