Moritzplatz—Emotional Blackmail, 2018

Emotional Blackmail is a series of billboards and street posters developed in response to large-scale real estate development at Moritzplatz. In 2017, the firm Pandion acquired significant plots of land in the area, marking a tipping point that threatened to redefine the neighbourhood through high-end development and inevitable displacement. The project emerged during a period of temporary cultural use of these sites, when questions of visibility, responsibility, and institutional presence in contested urban space became increasingly urgent.

Two billboards were produced, one in German and one in Turkish, reflecting the linguistic and social realities of the area. Installed in public space and later brought into the gallery, the works adopt the visual language of advertising while resisting its promises. They confront viewers with the emotional and political pressures embedded in processes of urban transformation, foregrounding the uneven power relations that shape how cities change and who is displaced in the process.

Billboard and poster series

Commissioned by REALTY
A project conceived by Tirdad Zolghadr, KW Institute for Contemporary Art

With support from Tirdad Zolghadr, Duygu Örs, Sabrina Herrmann, Julie Lübbecke, Julie Lübbecke, Stella Flatten, and Commons Abendschule im Prinzessinnengarten

Commissioned by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Sommerakademie Paul Klee Bern
Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin