Larissa Araz's solo exhibition 'In Hoc Signo Vinces' will take place at Versus Art Project between March 12 - April 27, 2024. 

 

'In Hoc Signo Vinces' is based on the taxonomic renaming of three endangered animal species by the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Forestry in 2005.

 

From the last years of the Ottoman Empire to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey (1840-1923), many colonial and imperialist scientists and missionaries came to the Ottoman lands to study the geography, nature and socio-political structure of the region. Many of these researchers made important discoveries in Anatolia and Mesopotamia, studying species previously unrecorded in Western scientific literature. These discoveries included species belonging to animal classes such as the Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica (Satunin, 1906), Ovis Armeniana (Blyth, 1840) and Capreolus Capreolus Armenius (Blackler, 1919).

 

The words 'Armenia' and 'Kurdistan' were removed from the taxonomic names of these three animal species belonging to the Fox, Wild Sheep and Roe deer and replaced with 'Anatolia' and 'East'. The names of the animals were changed from Vulpes Vulpes Kurdistanica to Vulpes Vulpes, Ovis Armeniana to Ovis Orientalis Anatolicus and Capreolus Capreolus Armenius to Capreolus Cuprelus Capreolus. 

 

In her exhibition 'In Hoc Signo Vinces', Larissa Araz examines these name changes in four separate sections: Scientist, Language, Animals and Hunters.

The exhibition brings together Araz's site-specific installations produced in the last 3 years using different media such as engraving, zinc, drawing, video and sound.