“The exhibition ‘Parroting The Parrot’ reminds us that the narratives that shape our collective memory are often curated by those who control the platforms of storytelling”

Co-directors of 1646, Clara Pallí & Johan Gustavsson

In the exhibition, Parroting The Parrot, Cihad Caner looks at how stories about the past are created and who has the power to define them. Inspired by the rise of Turkish historical TV series across Turkey, Europe, and the Middle East, he examines the influence of entertainment on collective memory.

To explore this, Caner’s new installation tells the story of Cem Sultan, an Ottoman prince exiled in Europe in the late 1400s, accompanied by his parrot. In this work, the parrot becomes the main character to look at how stories are retold and reimagined—raising the question: could a parrot rewrite history?

By combining fiction and reality, the artist challenges popular historical recounts and makes us think about what influences our understanding of the past.

ABOUT

Cihad Caner (b. 1990) is an artist based in Rotterdam and Brussels. His practice explores the politics of the image through the mediums of video, photography, music, motion-capture, and CGI. Caner’s research-driven practice revolves around (re)presentation, language, marginalisation and alterity. His fictional CGI characters are often multi-lingual protagonists in non-linear, metaphorical narratives that employ humour, absurdity, and poetry to critique the status quo. Recently he has exhibited at Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki; TENT, Rotterdam; Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel; Nest, Den Haag; Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin; Kunsthalle Baden-Baden; Július Koller Society, Bratislava; Kunsthal Mechelen, Mechelen; Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, and İstanbul Modern, İstanbul, among others. Caner was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (2021-2023).