Old friends
by Pınar Kayarfrom 29.08 to 06.09.2026
where
Church of San Giovanni Evangelista (Old Church)
piazza Don Gnocchi, 23851 Galbiate (Lc)
when
the exhibition will be open from 30.08 to 06.09.2026
hours
7.30am – 12.00pm and 03.00pm – 07.00pm
Giulia Casartelli and Pınar Kayar will be present on 30.08 to welcome visitors and answer their questions.
Giulia Casartelli will be present every morning from 31.08 to 06.09 (except 02.09).
Church of San Giovanni Evangelista (Old Church)
piazza Don Gnocchi, 23851 Galbiate (Lc)
when
the exhibition will be open from 30.08 to 06.09.2026
hours
7.30am – 12.00pm and 03.00pm – 07.00pm
Giulia Casartelli and Pınar Kayar will be present on 30.08 to welcome visitors and answer their questions.
Giulia Casartelli will be present every morning from 31.08 to 06.09 (except 02.09).
info
opening: 29.08.2026
05.00pm – 07.00pm: exhibition opening at the Old Church
07.30pm – 09.00pm: conversation between Giulia Casartelli and Pınar Kayar in the courtyard of the girls’ oratory
opening: 29.08.2026
05.00pm – 07.00pm: exhibition opening at the Old Church
07.30pm – 09.00pm: conversation between Giulia Casartelli and Pınar Kayar in the courtyard of the girls’ oratory
Pınar’s Cave
In the autumn of 2025 I took a friend’s advice and went to an exhibition at Ark Kültür, a cultural centre located in an expertly restored modernist house. It’s in Cihangir, the neighbourhood I live in whenever I’m in Istanbul.
The show, Hayat Sergisi – Life Exhibition was the first solo project by the young artist Pınar Kayar. It impressed me more than anything I had seen in a long time, so I wanted to meet with Pınar; I hoped she would become the first artist showcased in GalbiArte, a small series of exhibitions I was envisioning for Galbiate—the small town where I grew up and which I had visited as little as possible for many years.
Pınar agreed to meet, so we made an appointment for the next day at her studio in the Atatürk Oto Sanayi district of the Malask neighbourhood. This is a unique place where metalworking facilities were constructed from the 1970s onwords, alongside skyscrapers, restaurants serving meat specialties, and the most famous techno club in Turkey. Pınar rented out a space there a few years ago: a car repair shop with very high ceilings and a loft. She renovated it with care, painting the front door and its roller shutter red; she hung long, thick curtains to partition the space; she put in a heatstove, a ceramics kiln and a large table for talking with guests. She also added a large, soft bed, a bathroom with tiles she fired herself, and bookshelves.
I told her about my idea of bringing her to Galbiate, as she stroked her almost nine-month-pregnant belly. She accepted my invitation and returned the favour, proposing that I work and live in her studio over the next few months; the imminent arrival of little Pina Bal would be keeping her away from the space for a while. I immediately said yes. I would finish painting my 55 Caves there.
I’m used to living in other people’s spaces. Over the last eighteen years, I’ve rarely had the same address for more than three months at a time. And when I move, it never takes me more than a day to find a place. Sometimes a friend will have me cat-sit at their apartment; sometimes a kind lady will rent me a family home that she would never let out to strange tourists; the list could go on and on.
These spaces are caves: they are gifts directly from nature, a supernatural boon unmediated by the act of construction. They appear, but they always been there, ready to welcome you in.
I see infinity whenever someone hands over a bunch of keys. And in that moment I feel woven into the fabric of the world, which is simply life itself.
Since 15 April 1986, when I was born, to 31 January 2026, when I am writing this, I have been granted 55 caves. The fifty-fifth is Pinar’s.
Giulia Casartelli
Translation by Johanna Bishop
1. Octave Larmagnac-Matheron, Simplicité et rêverie: la vie troglodytique selon Bachelard, https://www.philomag.com/ 22.6.2022.
2. Transcendence “is the capacity to form connections with something larger than the self and perceive them as part of it, recognizing through this special experience of meaning that to exist is to be woven into the great fabric of the world that Buddhists call tantra, but is simply life itself.” (Moreno Montanari, Vivere la filosofia (Mursia, 2013), 11.
In the autumn of 2025 I took a friend’s advice and went to an exhibition at Ark Kültür, a cultural centre located in an expertly restored modernist house. It’s in Cihangir, the neighbourhood I live in whenever I’m in Istanbul.
The show, Hayat Sergisi – Life Exhibition was the first solo project by the young artist Pınar Kayar. It impressed me more than anything I had seen in a long time, so I wanted to meet with Pınar; I hoped she would become the first artist showcased in GalbiArte, a small series of exhibitions I was envisioning for Galbiate—the small town where I grew up and which I had visited as little as possible for many years.
Pınar agreed to meet, so we made an appointment for the next day at her studio in the Atatürk Oto Sanayi district of the Malask neighbourhood. This is a unique place where metalworking facilities were constructed from the 1970s onwords, alongside skyscrapers, restaurants serving meat specialties, and the most famous techno club in Turkey. Pınar rented out a space there a few years ago: a car repair shop with very high ceilings and a loft. She renovated it with care, painting the front door and its roller shutter red; she hung long, thick curtains to partition the space; she put in a heatstove, a ceramics kiln and a large table for talking with guests. She also added a large, soft bed, a bathroom with tiles she fired herself, and bookshelves.
I told her about my idea of bringing her to Galbiate, as she stroked her almost nine-month-pregnant belly. She accepted my invitation and returned the favour, proposing that I work and live in her studio over the next few months; the imminent arrival of little Pina Bal would be keeping her away from the space for a while. I immediately said yes. I would finish painting my 55 Caves there.
I’m used to living in other people’s spaces. Over the last eighteen years, I’ve rarely had the same address for more than three months at a time. And when I move, it never takes me more than a day to find a place. Sometimes a friend will have me cat-sit at their apartment; sometimes a kind lady will rent me a family home that she would never let out to strange tourists; the list could go on and on.
These spaces are caves: they are gifts directly from nature, a supernatural boon unmediated by the act of construction. They appear, but they always been there, ready to welcome you in.
I see infinity whenever someone hands over a bunch of keys. And in that moment I feel woven into the fabric of the world, which is simply life itself.
Since 15 April 1986, when I was born, to 31 January 2026, when I am writing this, I have been granted 55 caves. The fifty-fifth is Pinar’s.
Giulia Casartelli
Translation by Johanna Bishop
1. Octave Larmagnac-Matheron, Simplicité et rêverie: la vie troglodytique selon Bachelard, https://www.philomag.com/ 22.6.2022.
2. Transcendence “is the capacity to form connections with something larger than the self and perceive them as part of it, recognizing through this special experience of meaning that to exist is to be woven into the great fabric of the world that Buddhists call tantra, but is simply life itself.” (Moreno Montanari, Vivere la filosofia (Mursia, 2013), 11.
Biography
Pınar Kayar is a multi-disciplinary artist — or, as she increasingly describes herself, a lifist. Moving between drawing, ceramics, installation, text, performance, and everyday actions, she focuses on thinking through making, repetitive acts, rituals, and particles. The idea of “lifism” emerged after a period in which the separation between art and life began to collapse. After considering leaving art altogether, Kayar found herself in culinary environment, performing daily routines in the kitchen while continuing to draw and observe outside of it. Lifism became a way of understanding existence through continuous acts of making, observing, collecting, cooking, carrying, repairing, reusing, and transforming. Through this approach, her work continuously returns to the question of what it means to be human, searching for possibilities of hope and healing within the fragments of the everyday.
www.pinarkayar.com