MIME
MIME is a new drop by a Kurdish-American visual artist Helin Sahin. This series of 9 works is a testament to the artist’s multidisciplinary evolution, filled with cosmic and familial symbolism, prompting viewers to engage with the enigmatic dance between opposing forces that define human experiences.
Helin Sahin (1992, Turkey) is a Kurdish-American visual artist. Her work spans multiple platforms — 3D modelling, digital sculpting, and video. Much of Helin’s work focuses on the subconscious inner realm, post-internet aesthetics and network culture, Kurdish iconography and imagery, and its visual digitisation. She has been part of several exhibitions around the world at key galleries and museums, including The Wrong Digital Biennial in 2015 and 2017, Superchief Gallery (Soho and Miami), nGbK (Berlin), Museo Universitario Del Chopo (Mexico City), Industry Gallery (Los Angeles), After Howl Studio (Sint-Jans-Molenbeek), Palazzo San Guiseppe (Polignano a Mare), UNA Galleria (Piacenza), Galerija Siva (Zagreb), and Doğan Taşdelen Çağdaş Sanatlar Merkezi (Ankara). Her work has been featured in VICE, Creators Project, NXS Magazine, AQNB, Non Fiction and Capslock Magazine, among others; while Helin’s past collaborations include brands like Burberry and Flora Miranda. She also produced runway visuals for SS/FW 2016 at the Los Angeles and Vancouver Fashion Weeks. Helin lives and works in Germany.
Helin Sahin's series MIME delves into the essence of equilibrium and duality, transcending boundaries between real, organic and digitally manipulated objects and landscapes through a synthesis of materiality, movement, and cosmic symbolism. In the project, Sahin employs multi-perspectival CGI sculptures to convey a state of equilibrium, where translucent waves and frozen strands create an enigmatic interplay of beauty and complexity. Sahin's artistic exploration is deeply rooted in her complex identity, shaped by her Kurdish heritage and familial history. She creates still images, capturing fragments of objects and people suspended in time and highlighting themes of erasure. Thus, the opacity and abstraction in Sahin's work mirror the artist's own grappling with identity. The juxtaposition of 2D-rendered, multi-dimensional objects creates illusions of simplicity while underlying complexities and turmoil remain elusive. The fusion of digital and analogue elements blurs the boundaries between realities, disorienting viewers perspectives. MIME invites viewers to contemplate cosmic symbolism through the combination of formal and familiar elements within the same space, adding depth and creating a nuanced interplay of contrasts.
