Banu Cennetoğlu: right?

Banu Cennetoğlu presents right? (2022-ongoing), an evolving work that transforms articles from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) into dense bouquets of gold Mylar letter balloons. For MAAM, the artist features UDHR Articles 25 and 26, which affirm the rights to an adequate standard of living and an education. As the balloons gradually deflate over the course of the exhibition, the work becomes a meditation on the labor required to sustain and protect rights that are treated as universal ideals but remain unevenly realized. Cennetoğlu asks viewers to consider not only whether these rights endure, but also whether societies continue to believe in and uphold them.