Microscripts
MQ Artist-in-Residence Pelin Kırca (TUR)
Free admission
Pelin Kırca is an artist-in-residence at the MuseumsQuartier Wien in collaboration with ASIFA Austria. Pelin will personally present a selection of her films in MQ Room D and unveil her ASIFAKEIL installation “Microscripts,” which is based on her film of the same name.
Inspired by Robert Walser’s prose, “Microscripts” unfolds as a series of visual fragments that reflect his concept of writing as a continuous, plotless narrative—a book of self-concept. In the novel “Jakob von Gunten” (1908), Robert Walser describes, in diary form, the experiences of his main character at a boys’ boarding school. The material lends itself well to adaptation as an animated film because dreams and fantasies intermingle with factual accounts. The stifling atmosphere of the school, compulsive rituals, and nightmarish visions are harmoniously rendered in delicate, hand-drawn illustrations created with a limited color palette. (Thomas Renoldner)
Pelin Kırca studied graphic design at Bilkent University in Ankara (2000–2004) and earned her MFA in design from the School of Visual Arts in New York (2005–2007). In 2016, she attended Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School in Munich.
Her first solo exhibition, “In Bloom,” was presented at Dirimart in Istanbul in 2015 and featured drawings from her first artist’s book edition of the same title, published by Norgunk.
The publication marked the beginning of an ongoing collaboration with Norgunk, which continued with further publications, including her illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (2015) and “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” (2019), as well as the artist’s book edition “Sivas” (2018).
Her animated films have been screened at international film festivals, including the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the Festival du Court Métrage de Clermont-Ferrand, Vienna Shorts, the Encounters Film Festival, the London International Animation Film Festival, and the Chicago Underground Film Festival. In 2018, “One Moonless Night” was invited by Istanbul Modern to participate in the “Artists’ Film International” program initiated by the Whitechapel Gallery.
Her recent works include the solo exhibition “The Crowd” at Galeri Nev in Ankara (2023), the exclusive release of her animated short film “The Crowd” on MUBI (2025), and her participation in the 7th Mardin Biennial (2026). Kırca lives and works in Ankara.
MQ Raum D
