KORKUT2026

Rites
of Eternal Wind

Il Korkut Sonic Arts Triennale

Dedicated to sound and listening, the Triennale creates a space for a wide range of sonic practices without restricting them by institutional boundaries. Over the course of two months, Rites of Eternal Wind will host sound installations and live events, listening sessions and soundwalks, hybrid lectures, discussions and workshops, somatic performances and explorations of sonic rituals and environments where sound is absent or even impossible.

Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture

Saadet Türköz

A celebrated improviser and vocal artist, Saadet Türköz was born in Istanbul in 1961 in the family of Kazakhs from East Turkestan, who left their homeland because of oppressive Chinese policies, and lived in India and Pakistan before relocating to Türkiye. Living in Switzerland since 1981, her music is heavily influenced by all these geographical entanglements, and of course, traditional songs from Kazakhstan and East Turkestan. Over a few decades of her career, her style incorporated many new influences, including improvisation, free jazz, experimental vocal practice, sound poetry, and modern popular music from all the countries she relates to.

Through the years, Saadet has developed her own unique style of singing, which cannot easily be characterized. It is very physical, visceral, and expressive, constantly shifting between extremes: what sounds like ancient chants mutates into extended vocal improvisation, which quickly gives way to a Kazakh kui, then transforms into a calm incantation resembling a lullaby that her mother once sang to her, only to explode into a lively recitation, almost as if Saadet is participating in aitys, involved in an oratorical battle of wits with herself as an opponent. Inspired by many things at once, from the poems of Abai Qunanbajuly to archaic Swiss yodeling, her voice exists between states, never fully leaning into one of them—between the past and the future, the traditional and the contemporary. Saadet is not interested in glorifying or sanctifying these musical roots; her gaze is not directed toward the past — it draws from the past and, in the fusion of all her influences, points toward a future in which people live in harmony with who they are, closer to their origins and the surrounding nature.

Working both as a solo artist and as a collaborator in duos, trios, and larger free-improvising formations, Saadet has, throughout her career, collaborated with many renowned musicians, including Elliott Sharp, Bobby McFerrin, Miya Masaoka, and others. Over the last few years, she has also formed a strong connection with the young generation of the Kazakhstani independent and experimental music scene, which has resulted in her playing one of the main roles in BARSAKELMES, an inaugural performance that launched the public program of the Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture.

‍Işiltay / Shiny Foal
2-channel video (2019–2026)

The two-channel video trilogy that Saadet Türköz has commissioned for Rites of Eternal Wind explores the diverse cultural and ritual sources from which her art draws: on the one hand, the oral, spoken, and sung rites foundational to her upbringing in Türkiye and her Kazakh ancestry — from East Turkestan and, further back, Semey; on the other hand, the traditions and sounds of her adopted home in Switzerland, which she has come to know over the course of her life and which have also shaped her art and personality.

Saadet often calls her voice “archaic,” by which she means that wherever she lives, her personality and being resonate with what came before her, passed down from one generation to another. She believes that the deceased have power — they can teach us how to live in harmony, protect nature, and respect those around us. This is the main inspiration for Işiltay, alongside elemental substances such as wind, air, and breath.

As a sonic artist, Saadet depends on air to breathe and on breath to sing and vocalize; in this sense, her work revolves around this universal life function, essential to all human beings. For her, it is also the basis for artistic transformation — breathing as a support for resonance and vibration throughout the body. Breath can carry a human being into the realm of the unconscious, where mystery resides: the unspoken, the untouched, the childlike, the images that arise through storytelling, as well as darkness and depth.Besides music, Saadet has throughout her career worked across various video, theater, film, dance, and literary productions, but Işiltay / Shiny Foal is, unexpectedly, her first commission as a contemporary artist. One could even say it is the first context in which she has full control over how she presents herself in a gallery space, rather than being presented by others. Maybe because of these the Işiltay trilogy becomes a deeply personal work that reflects everything she has touched, seen, smelled, heard, and felt.

The Seeker says:‍

“Breathe. Stop. Breathe. Stop. Breathe. Stop. Breathe. Come outside at night and walk so silently that only the wind can hear your steps. Close your eyes, as the ancestors will guide you.”