Erdem Taşdelen

Erdem Taşdelen is a Turkish-Canadian artist who currently lives and works in Toronto. His practice is rooted in conceptualism and involves a range of media including installation, video, sculpture, sound and artist books. His diverse projects bring self-expression into question within the context of culturally learned behaviours, where he often draws from unique historical narratives to address the complexities of current sociopolitical issues. Taşdelen’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions internationally. He was awarded the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize in Visual Arts by the Canada Council for the Arts (2016), the Charles Pachter Prize for Emerging Artists by the Hnatyshyn Foundation (2014), and is currently long-listed for the Sobey Art Award.  At Rupert, Taşdelen will be working on a video project titled A Minaret for the General’s Wife, which takes a free-standing Ottoman-style minaret built in 1880 in the town of Kėdainiai, Lithuania as its premise. He will consider this structure as a conduit for meditating on the cultural experience of being out of place, and develop a narrative that explores the symbolic transformation that occurs when a place of worship is castrated of its functionality.

Erdem Taşdelen’s residency at Rupert is supported by Canada Council for the Arts and Office of the Canadian Embassy to Lithuania.