Situated Selves: Jala Aziz, Irina Eldarova, Eldar Gurban, Butunay Hagverdiyev, Anar Huseynzade, Ramal Kazim, Tora Mais, Regina Rzaeva, Rza Rzazade
Gazelli Art House Baku is pleased to present Situated Selves, a multidisciplinary exhibition drawing on the philosophical thought of Edward S. Casey (b.1939), one of the most influential voices in American phenomenology.
Casey distinguishes between “place” and “space”, arguing that place is fundamentally tied to embodied experience and lived reality, while space is more abstract and detached. He explores how place shapes our identity, memory, and relationship with the world, advocating for a “place-based” ethic that recognizes our embeddedness in specific locations.
In contrast to modernist and Cartesian traditions that privilege space as empty, uniform, and measurable, Casey positions place as irreducibly lived: textured by affect, temporality, and cultural significance. “We are not only in place,” he argues, “but of it”.
Artists evoke places imagined, lost, and re-inhabited – exploring how place anchors experience and how dislocation reverberates through the body and psyche. In Situated Selves, visitors are invited not merely to observe space but to dwell in it, to inhabit the exhibition as an experiential terrain.
The participating artists offer imaginative responses to space, revealing personal narratives and emotional geographies shaped by their unique encounters. Here, space is not a fixed backdrop but a living entity – something to be remembered, questioned and reimagined.
