The Verdict Is In: Selin Davasse on Performance, Law, and Accountability

Selin Davasse: Exhausted and exhilarated at once! I always feel a little anxious and exposed when presenting a new work. Sometimes this sense of danger brings a different aliveness to the performance very unlike the composure l feel with tried-and-tested works. In the days leading up, there’s always doubt, ambivalence and agony, because every decision feels like it could pull me away from the perfect fantasy I began with.

It started as a joke with friends actually! While complaining about the petty crimes of the art world–victim-playing, trauma-looting, tokenization, virtue-signaling, I came up with ArtJail, a corrective residency for repeat offenders. They’d be sent to reflect on the gap between their words and actions, the disparity between what they take and give, the distance between who they wanted to be and who their ambition has turned them into. People loved riffing on it everyone I told immediately added another comic punishment.

At first, I hesitated to build my first solo exhibition around it, since I believe police and prisons are harmful systems that should be abolished. But in discussion with the curators of soft power, Linnéa Bake and Eva Herrmann, we shifted the frame from the correctional facility to the courtroom viewing it as a stage for the textuality and performativity of law.

This project emerged at a moment when, like many of us, I felt disillusioned by both art and law as forces for good. Immersing myself in legal history and drafting a penal code based on the art world’s own representational claims and ethical posturing became a way to reckon with that disillusionment and to find, if not meaning, then at least understanding.

It was conceptually important that I embody all positions in turn to judge and be judged, to accuse and stand accused, to testify and to defend, so that the gesture is not one of blame, but of self-questioning, self-reflection, self-justification, and at times, self-punishment. I wanted to be honest that I am offended by the art world of which I am a part, and therefore also capable of offending. Performing it feels like putting the voices inside my head on trial prosecuting and defending impulses, examining intentions and their consequences, asking what it means to act with integrity as an art worker in the era of identity politics.

A system can only be as ethical as its participants. As art workers we tell stories that often contain self-serving omissions. By playing all the roles, I test whether those stories can withstand 

cross-examination in a truth-finding process, where every witness is sworn to honesty. In law, the Bar Association compels professionals to uphold higher ethical standards or lose their standing. In the art world, by contrast, the ends often justify the means. I wanted to imagine what it would look like if we had binding norms, procedures, institutions, how those tools might reshape the way we work, relate, and account for our actions

Their level of engagement has a strong effect on me. In writing and rehearsal, I imagine both the best possible and the worst possible audience reactions. In reality, what happens during the performance usually lands closer to the best. At first I sense them as a collective, almost like another animal in my enclosure that I am not sure how close I can get to. As I ease into the performance, I notice each individual and how willing they are to meet my gaze.

The art world likes to see itself as exceptional but actually its power imbalances, hypocrisies and complicities aren’t unique. It functions by its own codes, but translation is always possible. As long as the language is not too alienating and the references not too niche, people outside the art world still find ways in through the discourse, the plot, the humor or the hospitality.

Everyone knows the sting of injustice, so they can relate even if it’s voiced by a dirty pigeon, an ambitious show-horse, a ravenous silkworm, or a fictional prosecutor. My performances can be text-heavy, and not every word gets its due in a live setting, but sincerity of emotion always registers.

When I work on a new commission, I try to make it as site-responsive and adaptable as possible. The context determines the budget and support, which shape how the work gets packaged publicly. But the inner work of reading, writing, and rehearsing is influenced more by what the work itself demands than by where it will be performed.

For me, performance has to be, at least in part, an act of love. How much vulnerability I risk depends on the audience I sense before me. Institutions legitimize you, but they also tame and frame you, which can feel constraining. Smaller, more intimate or unconventional spaces allow more rawness and play, but with less visibility and sustainability.

My animal performances; She-Pigeon (2022), Straight from the Mare’s Mouth (2023), Consequences of Salivating(2025) are the most versatile and have taken on lives of their own, absorbing traces of the places and people they travel to.

When I reflect on my position as a performance artist working mostly in visual art contexts, I like to say: I make moments, not monuments! I’d like people to feel we shared a moment of intimacy and immediacy like they were touched or implicated in some way: emotionally, morally, intellectually, or even comedically.

I don’t have a fixed ritual, but there are words I turn to when I feel stuck or overwhelmed. I keep them in my notes app.

I was the only child of loving but careerist parents, so I spent a lot of time daydreaming and reading. My mother kept a diary of my emotions from pregnancy until I could write my own, so my imagination was colored by interiority and domesticity. My life revolved around school, ballet, and music lessons. I grew up performing for love, which I later had to unlearn.

My parents were very political, and I came of age during a time when Turkey was in metamorphosis. That instability of values, meanings, and histories shaped my mistrust of institutions and authority.

Animals, both real and literary! And human friends, both real and imaginary!