With this exhibition in Oldenburg, Yenirce (born 1992 in Qubînê) returns to her former hometown where she grew up as the child of Yazidi refugees. This biographical grounding creates a resonant starting point for her artistic practice.
Across installations, paintings, and video works, Yenirce intertwines global themes such as migration, feminist self-assertion, and media power structures with personal memories of specific places, voices, and encounters. A formative work from the museum’s collection is placed alongside wall drawings from her youth, presented as equal counterparts.
At the heart of her paintings is a series of women who have profoundly shaped Yenirce’s development. Whether real or symbolic, figures from art and literature, education and politics are brought together into a combative yet life-affirming “choir of women”. In the large-scale oil paintings —rendered through screen printing—they appear at microphones, speaking, singing, and applauding.
Finally, Yenirce turns her attention to a contemporary view of Oldenburg. For her video work, she follows her brother, a passionate runner, as he moves through the city’s darkened streets. His headlamp casts only a small circle of light—offering not clear orientation, yet constantly in motion.
The exhibition title “Werdegang” (“career” or “life path”) is meant quite literally. Walking becomes a process of becoming, reflected both in the artist’s biography and in the runner featured in the video: their movements carry them through the streets of Oldenburg—or, in the artist’s case, from Oldenburg out into the wider world and back again.
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