Ana Botezatu (*1982, Brașov, Romania) works across ceramics, drawing, book illustration, set design, puppetry, and ethnographic research. Her artistic practice is characterized by a distinctive visual language that takes shape primarily in her ceramic work. Her small-scale ceramic sculptures unfold in micro-narratives that reflect folk and art historical motifs and mythologies, and are marked by a heightened sense of character and expression. Central to her practice is a finely tuned sensitivity to symbols, patterns, flora, and fantastical creatures, which she uses to construct a world shaped by wonder and childlike curiosity. A recurring concern within her work is the dissolution of boundaries between utility and art. As part of the artist duo Mixer, she collected, archived, and published recipes from Transylvanian villages and the Danube Delta region. In this spirit, she often creates connections between her delicate ceramic pieces and everyday objects such as dishes and candleholders, or adapts them into hand puppets designed for plays and performative use. Her recent exhibitions trace an increased engagement with spatial composition and scenographic elements, alongside a growing emphasis on set design within her practice.
To Anybody at All is the second installment of an exchange between the two project spaces Non.Sight and Stations. This collaboration began in August 2025 with Merve Denizci’s and Doğancan Yılmaz’s research visit to Berlin, during which they temporarily established their studio at Stations.
Marking Ana Botezatu’s first presentation in Turkey, To Anybody at All continues the practice of activating the exhibition space as a site for artistic production. The title, borrowed from a poem by Scottish artist and writer Margaret Tait, serves as an unassuming yet fitting invitation to an exhibition taking place in the İ.M.Ç., Istanbul Manufacturer’s Bazaar—a building complex that hosts a variety of manufacturers’ stores and recalls the city’s rich histories and traditions of manufacturing and trade.
With the exception of one work brought from Berlin—a small glazed ceramic piece reflecting the scale of most of her fired works (made to fit her studio kiln)—Ana produced all the other pieces over the course of four days at Non.Sight, in the space generously offered by Merve and Doğancan, using materials sourced or found locally. These include five sculptures or groupings made from unfired clay, along with a window drawing also made with clay. Obliquely, the show reflects on the realities of artistic labor, offering a response to the often complicated and invisible working conditions burdened by the costs and logistics of shipping and presentation.
This approach was Ana Botezatu’s own wish: to be for once freed from these specific constraints. For the first time in a long while, she can create without concern for what will eventually happen to the works, as the unfired sculptures and the drawing will be destroyed after the exhibition, with a few possible exceptions. Freed from such impositions, the outcome of four days of nevertheless intense labor takes shape in the spirit of Margaret Tait’s poem:
neither bound to me nor bound to anyone else’s or
your own preconceived idea of yourself.
We would like to thank Ana Botezatu for her ongoing inspiring collaboration and exchange, Cătălin Ilie for his invaluable support.
To Anybody at All is the second installment of an exchange between the two project spaces Non.Sight and Stations. This collaboration began in August 2025 with Merve Denizci’s and Doğancan Yılmaz’s research visit to Berlin, during which they temporarily established their studio at Stations.
Marking Ana Botezatu’s first presentation in Turkey, To Anybody at All continues the practice of activating the exhibition space as a site for artistic production. The title, borrowed from a poem by Scottish artist and writer Margaret Tait, serves as an unassuming yet fitting invitation to an exhibition taking place in the İ.M.Ç., Istanbul Manufacturer’s Bazaar—a building complex that hosts a variety of manufacturers’ stores and recalls the city’s rich histories and traditions of manufacturing and trade.
With the exception of one work brought from Berlin—a small glazed ceramic piece reflecting the scale of most of her fired works (made to fit her studio kiln)—Ana produced all the other pieces over the course of four days at Non.Sight, in the space generously offered by Merve and Doğancan, using materials sourced or found locally. These include five sculptures or groupings made from unfired clay, along with a window drawing also made with clay. Obliquely, the show reflects on the realities of artistic labor, offering a response to the often complicated and invisible working conditions burdened by the costs and logistics of shipping and presentation.
This approach was Ana Botezatu’s own wish: to be for once freed from these specific constraints. For the first time in a long while, she can create without concern for what will eventually happen to the works, as the unfired sculptures and the drawing will be destroyed after the exhibition, with a few possible exceptions. Freed from such impositions, the outcome of four days of nevertheless intense labor takes shape in the spirit of Margaret Tait’s poem:
neither bound to me nor bound to anyone else’s or
your own preconceived idea of yourself.
We would like to thank Ana Botezatu for her ongoing inspiring collaboration and exchange, Cătălin Ilie for his invaluable support.
Stations
ANA BOTEZATU studied ceramics at the Art and Design University Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and currently lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Förderverein Aktuelle Kunst, Münster (2025); Radio Athènes, Athens (2025); Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw (with Marieta Chirulescu, 2025); Cazul 101, Bucharest (with Alex Bodea, 2022); Galerie Auslage, Berlin (2022); Kunst am Bau, Berlin (2020); Stations, Berlin (2020).
ANA BOTEZATU studied ceramics at the Art and Design University Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and currently lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Förderverein Aktuelle Kunst, Münster (2025); Radio Athènes, Athens (2025); Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw (with Marieta Chirulescu, 2025); Cazul 101, Bucharest (with Alex Bodea, 2022); Galerie Auslage, Berlin (2022); Kunst am Bau, Berlin (2020); Stations, Berlin (2020).
