Manifesta 16 Ruhr
St. Anna – Hatay Engin Musikhalle, Gelsenkirchen · 21 June – 4 October 2026 · Creative Mediator: Gürsoy Doğtaş
With the persona Bülent Wongsoy, Wong fuses his own name with that of the Turkish film and pop star Bülent Ersoy, taking up her star image and making it something new: at once glamorous and vulnerable, a stage figure and an archival practice.
Gender, trans identity, ethnicity, language and national belonging are set in motion through a deliberate tension between appropriation and distance. Original Ersoy LP and cassette covers sit beside photographs of Wong as Ersoy – a visual archive of transformation that questions original and copy, idol and fan.
Biji Diva! (record cover), 2014
Record covers, digital print on cardboard
Yüz Karası, 2014
Cassette covers and boxes, digital prints on paper, facsimile 1/3, 66 × 76 cm
Singing soft g, 2026
Video, 29′36″
Photos © Manifesta 16 Ruhr / Rainer Schlautmann