Barış Doğrusöz is an artist and filmmaker from Türkiye whose multidisciplinary practice explores the entangled narratives of history, memory, and militarized space. Working across video, sculpture, and installation, Doğrusöz uses archival material, archaeological documentation, and architectural forms to critique how knowledge and territory are spatially and materially encoded through military infrastructure and visual language. His practice often engages in what he terms “prequels and premonitions for a near future fiction,” examining how geopolitical and historical narratives are constructed.

For his work INTERSTICES (a dizzying array of combinations), Doğrusöz reimagined his installation Interstices, a dizzying array of combinations (2018), composed initially of 45 abstracted sculptures based on the form of pillboxes, small apertures for weapons commonly found across Lebanon, Palestine, and conflict zones near sensitive targets like official buildings or interstitial sites like checkpoints. These structures are specifically designed to be invisible or impenetrable in their form while also constructing the boundaries or borders of access.

Doğrusöz’s serial presentation strips them of their original function, transforming them into diagrammatic civilian forms. For we refuse_d, the artist expanded the installation with newly produced sculptures, informed by updated research and architectural military artifacts that reflect post-war developments in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.

The work serves as both a formal study of militarized architecture and critical response to the shifting political realities of the region. By cataloging and abstracting these “extropic masks,” Doğrusöz builds a lexicon of resistance, mapping how oppressive structures may be reinterpreted as artifacts of memory and critique. This version of Interstices underscores his commitment to redefining spatial narratives and contesting hegemonic frameworks of historical knowledge.

we refuse_d is produced by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, on the occasion of their 15th anniversary, and presented in partnership with M HKA.
Curated by Nadia Radwan and Vasıf Kortun.