caner teker

caner teker is a fighter, choreographer and survivor whose work creates parasitic and transformative worlds. Through space, time and body, they reveal experiences beyond queerness and post-migrant identity.caner studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the SNDO, Amsterdam. Their performances have been presented at Gessnerallee Zürich, Julia Stoschek Collection, Tanzhaus NRW, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, and more. In 2022, they were a danceWEB scholar and performed at Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, Maxim Gorki Theater, Tanzquartier Wien and Münchner Volkstheater. Their work KIRKPINAR entered the Museum Ostwall collection and received the ars viva prize 2024. In 2025, caner was a Tarabya fellow.

HOW DOES YOUR SUBMITTED WORK RESPOND TO THE CIRCA 20:25 MANIFESTO?
your manifesto speaks of “refugia” as places where life endures and moves forward. my practice begins in the body, not as symbol, but as refusal. movement is never decoration but marked by history and trauma. your call for art as sanctuary resonates deeply. i create spaces where bodies listen to wounds, scent, and memory. at circa’s 20:25 pause, the city exhales; in my work, repetition holds presence and reveals what cannot be named. identity is communal and fractured. i respond with invitation: to step into overwhelm, feel remembered by intimacy, and carry refugia forward.

IF AWARDED THE £30,000 CIRCA PRIZE, WHAT 10-MINUTE WORK WOULD YOU CREATE – AND HOW WOULD IT EMBODY THE SPIRIT OF REFUGIA?
gurbet, a turkish word meaning estrangement or homesickness, is a 10-minute experimental film for circa’s video platform. filmed between turkey and germany, it explores how orientalism is imposed, internalized, and refused. the film asks how inherited images and traditions like turkish oil wrestling and the tulum bagpipe translate or shift when re-performed for western audiences. rejecting narrative, gurbet creates a sensorial space that mirrors circa’s 20:25 pause in a shared stillness to feel the weight of inherited paradigms. it inhabits the in-between as a terrain where identity is unsettled and tradition becomes unstable ground.

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Funding for the CIRCA PRIZE is generated entirely by the #CIRCAECONOMY, a circular model that reinvests proceeds from affordable art sold on CIRCA.ART into new public art commissions, charitable causes, art education and prizes. Since launching in 2020, the initiative has raised over £1 Million, placing artists and communities at the centre of an economy that continually reinvests in the future of art and culture.

The CIRCA PRIZE 2025 winners will be revealed LIVE in Piccadilly Circus on Monday 13 October, with a special 30-minute award ceremony starting at 20:00 BST. Don’t miss it!