Onur Tayranoğlu: Pink bill

Onur Tayranoğlu's exhibition Pink Bill discusses the artist’s experience of being diagnosed with a “sexual identity and behaviour disorder", which determines them unfit for the Turkish military service due to queerness. The diagnoses is also known as the “Pink-bill” in public slang.

The two exhibited works, The Rehearsal and O Şimdi Şey explore the concepts of performance and performativity in social, political and cultural contexts.The Rehearsal is a 36-minute video performance that Tayranoğlu created with their mother, Fadime, just before the hospital examination required within the military roll-call process. If one is able to prove their queerness in these examinations, they are exempted from the mandatory military service. The video exposes the shared vulnerability between Tayranoğlu and their mother, as well as the profound expressions of solidarity by Fadime towards her queer child.

Through roles such as mother and child, doctor and patient, soldier and state, the conversation reveals not the success in embodying these roles, but the significance of their failure. The exhibition reconstructs Tayranoğlu's experience of failing against the expectations of heteronormative institutions as a form of resistance and liberation. Tayranoğlu refers to this rehearsal as a performative space which allows the unaskable questions to be asked and unanswerable answers to be given.

The work entitled O Şimdi Şey - They are a Thing Now -, which includes a hand-embroidered scarf and a photographic print, focuses on the Turkish filler word “şey”. Sey appears frequently in the artist’s and Fadime's rehearsal, as they navigate personal, social, and political taboos. Şey is often used in moments of hesitation, self-censorship, or uncertainty, and in Tayranoğlu's work it becomes a linguistic tool for exploring these complex issues.

Onur Tayranoğlu (born in Turkey) is a Helsinki-based transdisciplinary performance artist whose work explores the boundaries between life and live art. Their practice delves into the concept of performativity beyond traditional art contexts, engaging with social, political, and cultural realities. Onur graduated with a master’s degree in Live Art and Performance Studies from Uniarts Helsinki and holds a bachelor’s degree in Arts, Media, and Society from Leiden University.

The exhibition has been produced in curatorial collaboration with Performistanbul and supported by Kone Foundation. It is part of the gallery’s 2025-26 program called Textures of Security, which has been curated through an open call by the museum’s curatorial team and invited curator Farbod Fakharzadeh, and supported by Museovirasto.