The Formulas of Happiness
Writing Workshop with Hayırlı Evlat

Is happiness a choice? Or the goal? And end or a consequence? Is it measurable? Is it comparable? How is happiness related to politics and economy? Can it be an experience independent from the society we live in? How does popular culture shape our view of happiness? Are we happy? The artist invites the writing workshop attendees to revisit these happiness-focused questions during the creative production process. At the workshop, we altogether write personal and collective stories based on the materials provided by the attendees beforehand.

Hayırlı Evlat, ​made Let Go of Yourself​, a video work presented at the A Question of Taste​, in Sinop, the top-ranked city according to Turkish Statistical Institute’s happiness questionnaires.                                                           

Related Exhibition: A Question of Taste

Materials

Before the workshop, please e-mail the items below to ogrenme@peramuzesi.org.tr by April 14, 2021.
- Provide an image (in JPEG) that you believe to hinder happiness.
- Provide a song that you believe to be representing happiness.            
- Provide the name and/or description of an actual or abstract place that gives you joy.

Capacity: 20 participants
Duration: 1,5 hours
Participation fee per workshop: 45 TL 

Participants will receive a certificate of participation via e-mail.
After an online guided tour of the exhibition, students attend a related workshop on the Zoom Meeting app.
The link to the workshop is shared with ticket holders only.
Please make sure that your camera and microphone are on so as to be able to see the attendees and communicate personal instructions. All the attendees with tickets are considered to have agreed to meet that requirement. 

For more information: ogrenme@peramuzesi.org.tr

About Hayırlı Evlat

Hayırlı Evlat lives and works in Istanbul, London, and Vienna. A professional since February 14, 2017, Hayırlı Evlat has found inspiration in the popular culture to create representations of versatile and permeable characters left out of the mainstream. Their practice reinterprets the popular culture by emulating its language and aesthetics as well as mirroring and emptying the culture. Being a good, dutiful child (hayırlı evlat) is what is tailored or even imposed to a person by their community. Hayırlı Evlat (literally a child with “no”) adopts the soft and constructive attitude of those who resisted the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum by saying “No” (Hayır), and embraces this word that has spread along with its etymological background. The artist bends this word, originally attached by others, and explores the contemporary ways of upholding “no” and being good.

Our quota is full, thank you for your interest.