Exhibition Titled “Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing” Opens at Art Rooms Gallery
The group exhibition “Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing”, realised in collaboration with Arkın University of Creative Arts and Design (ARUCAD), opens to the public on Wednesday, 14 January at 6:30 PM at Art Rooms Gallery, the contemporary art gallery located in Kyrenia. Bringing together international artists, the exhibition approaches soil and water not merely as natural resources, but as material, ecological, cultural, and political agents.
Curated by Başak Şenova, the exhibition features sculptural, performative, and research-based works. Within the exhibition, soil and water emerge as active forces that shape landscapes, environments, and histories, carrying memory and lived experience. “Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing” situates itself within the Mediterranean geography—formed through centuries of movement, transformation, extraction practices, and conflict—focusing on the multi-layered meanings carried by land and water within this context.
While the exhibition is primarily hosted at Art Rooms Gallery, selected works extend into the ARUCAD campus, establishing a dialogue between the gallery space and academic environments. As part of an artist residency programme held in Cyprus in December, South African artist Ledelle Moe produced a large-scale sculpture installed on the ARUCAD campus. Preparatory drawings and a video documenting the production process are presented at Art Rooms Gallery. Some works also form conceptual links between the exhibition at NIROX Sculpture Park and “Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing.”
The exhibition “Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing” can be visited between 14 January and 17 February 2026, every day except Sundays, between 1:30 PM and 8:30 PM, at Art Rooms Gallery.
About the Soil & Water Project
Soil & Water is an international research project developed by Prof. Johan Thom (University of Pretoria) and Assoc. Prof. Başak Şenova (University of Applied Arts Vienna), in collaboration with the NIROX Foundation. The project was initiated in South Africa in response to concerns regarding river and groundwater pollution in the UNESCO World Heritage Site Cradle of Humankind.
Advocating that art should not only make ecological realities visible but also generate meaning, urgency, and critical reflection, Soil & Water approaches soil and water as active agents that carry, preserve, reveal, protect, and transform time, memory, ideology, and history. The project also draws attention to the unequal governance of these shared resources, highlighting the ecological, social, and political pressures shaping land and water.
With the research being expanded into the Mediterranean context, “Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing” reveals how the dynamic relationship between soil and water sustains ecosystems, while simultaneously exposing the political, social, and environmental pressures exerted on these resources.
The exhibition also includes archival material from “Sediment,” a related exhibition curated by Başak Şenova and Dicle Beştaş, held between 2024 and 2025 at the contemporary art centre <rotor> in Graz, Austria. The publication accompanying the “Sediment” project—focusing on socio-political, ecological, and economic forces shaping the environment—has been published by ARUCAD Press with the financial support of ARUCAD–Art Rooms Gallery, within the scope of “Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing.”
Participating Artists
Soil & Water: Mediterranean Crossing
Alet Pretorius (ZA) | Atul Bhalla (IN) | Barbara Putz Plecko (AT) | Christophe Fellay (CH) | Diana Vives & Douglas Gimberg (CH/ZA) | Diego Masera (AR) | Ebru Kurbak (TR/AT) | Egle Oddo (IT/FI) | Eugénie Touzé (FR) | Francesco Bellina (IT) | Hera Büyüktaşcıyan (TR) | Herrana Addisu (ET) | Inma Herrera (ES/FI) | Isa Rosenberger (AT) | Jessica Ostrowicz (UK) | Johan Thom (ZA) | Ledelle Moe (ZA) | Lundahl & Seitl (SE) | Mithu Sen (IN) | Robin Rhode (ZA/DE) | Rojda Tuğrul (TR/AT) | Senzo Masondo (ZA) | Seretse Moletsane (ZA) | The Centre for the Less Good Idea (ZA) | The ZoNE (AT/CH/TR/ZA) | Tshepiso Mahooe (ZA)
Sediment
Aylin Kızıl (TR) | Barbara Schmid (AT) | Hristina Ivanoska (MK) | Leyla Keskin (TR) | Rozelin Akgün (TR) | Rojda Tuğrul (TR/AT)