The Visit - Ziyaret

Framed in headlines as 'The First Turkish Person with AIDS', Murtaza Elgin was diagnosed HIV positive in 1985 and was briefly forced into quarantine by the Minister of Health. When he died in 1992, his body was washed with bleach, wrapped in nylon and buried with lime in a zinc coffin 2.5 meters underground. Only two people attended his funeral. Commssioned by curator Alper Turan for the EUROPACH 'HIVstories: Living Politics' exhibition at dramaqueer in Istanbul, The Visit / Ziyaret by Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu returns to Murtaza Elgin's burial site to excavate his life and death, repoliticise his legacy, and re-claim him as an abandoned ancestor.