Env. No. 26.004.511

Nelumbo Studios in Kadıköy, Istanbul, presents Env. No. 26.004.511, a solo exhibition by Dilara Altınkepçe Arslan, from 22 October to 20 December 2026. Curated by Nil Nuhoğlu, it is her second solo show. At its centre is Personal Archive, 1993-2020, a series of 27 small framed works made in thread on raw cotton fabric. A large textile, a standing sculpture, a sound installation and an artist's book complete the show.

The series hangs in three sections by period: Early Years, 1993-1998; Childhood, 1998-2010; and Early Adulthood, 2011-2020. Each piece measures under 25 cm on their longest side. Wall texts tie the images to photographs from her own archive, kept for different reasons over the years. Some return as clear memories, while others reach her through family stories or through the picture alone. The sections pass through her birth in Bursa in 1993, a childhood spent largely at her grandmother's house and a family move after the 1999 earthquake. The last opens at 17, when she left Bursa to study in Istanbul, and takes in a period of illness, treatment and recovery.

Bugün (Today), from 2025, is a square textile 140 cm across. Its stacked masks refer to historical mask depictions from Central Asia, and the central mask stands for the state of one particular day. Manyak (2026), a sculpture measuring 120 x 60 x 180 cm, takes its name from the sacred shaman garment of the Altai region. In the gallery it stands as a long, fringed white garment topped by a mask. Sabotaj is a sound installation. Dilara's Notebook, an artist's book, gathers notes, lists, research and sketches from different years without ranking one above another.

The curator's text starts from the many things a life keeps that never enter an archive, and from small acts against forgetting, such as a thread tied at the wrist. In her reading, the show gives private objects the care normally reserved for institutional collections. Altınkepçe Arslan studied carpet, kilim and traditional fabric patterns at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University and completed a master's there in 2024. She co-founded Nelumbo Studios with Kerim Arslan in 2020, and her first solo show, RE-, took place there in 2024, also curated by Nuhoğlu. The gallery is open Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 7pm.