Ahmet Yiğider’s exhibition “Ant Nest” at CerModern will conclude on March 23.
CerModern Celebrates Its 15th Anniversary with Ahmet Yiğider’s The Ant Nest
As part of its 15th-anniversary celebrations, CerModern presents Ahmet Yiğider’s exhibition The Ant Nest, open to visitors until March 23. The exhibition features a large-scale sculpture made of metal and fabric, designed as a spiral structure that visitors can walk through. The Ant Nest focuses on the concept of a “fully social” collective existence, guided by scent.
Curated by Dilek Karaaziz Şener, the exhibition explores scent—one of the fundamental indicators of life and vitality. Using advanced technology, the artist scientifically analyzes scent and its molecular components.
Ants
Ahmet Yiğider’s work bridges science and art, investigating the relationship between ants’ social behaviors and their reliance on scent. In his specially designed glass tube environments, he observes ants’ interactions under different stress levels. By analyzing the volatile molecules released within these tubes through sensory and analytical chemistry methods, he deciphers their molecular composition. His research has identified over 1,000 different molecules within the ants’ body tissues. Yiğider sees this discovery as a reflection of nature’s vast encyclopedia.
Advanced Technology in Yiğider’s Conceptual Work
In his conceptual explorations, Ahmet Yiğider utilizes Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS)—an advanced analytical chemistry technique used to understand the molecular structure of volatile compounds. This method is widely employed in natural sciences such as chemistry, biology, and genetics, as well as in specialized fields like criminology.
Regarding his new exhibition project, Yiğider explains:
“Some of the volatile molecules I identified through analytical chemistry methods provide clues about the olfactory characteristics of ant secretions. In the next phase, I combined this complex molecular breakdown with sensory analysis findings to create an ‘ant scent’ composition accessible to human experience. Although ants are among the smallest visible creatures, they constitute the largest animal biomass in nature. Through this work, I wanted to draw attention to a silent narrative—a whisper—between ants and humans.”
Sensory Experience in Sculpture and The Ant Nest: Ahmet Yiğider
Published in parallel with the CerModern exhibition, the book Sensory Experience in Sculpture and The Ant Nest: Ahmet Yiğider explores themes such as scent in art, The installation, and the sensory dimensions of Yiğider’s sculptures. It features contributions from Alistair Hicks, Emre Zeytinoğlu, Vedat Ozan, and editor Dilek Karaaziz Şener.
Perspectives on the The Ant Nest Exhibition
Alistair Hicks (Writer, Art Curator, and Former Chief Curator of the Deutsche Bank Collection for 20 Years said “The art world rarely concerns itself with polymaths—artists well-versed in multiple scientific disciplines—even though Leonardo, one of history’s greatest artists, was a polymath himself. The 20th century, however, was a good time for polymath artists such as Man Ray, Duchamp, and Muybridge. Today, artists like Tomás Saraceno and Tony Cragg, along with their contemporaries, demonstrate the profound presence of science in their work. Yet, despite this, the gap between art and science continues to widen. Yiğider’s The Ant Nest, however, disregards this divide entirely, seamlessly merging art and science.”
Emre Zeytinoğlu (Artist, Theorist, Art Historian, and Academic) said “The Ant Nest consists of a conical structure, reminiscent of an ant nest, positioned at the center of the exhibition space. The spiral metal framework is covered with a semi-transparent fabric. As visitors navigate the installation, they follow an increasingly intense scent, ultimately leading them to its core. When considering Yiğider’s broader body of work, this installation seems like the final step in a journey—one that moves from the unity of nature and humans toward the unity of nature and all living beings.”
Vedat Ozan (Scent Expert, Perfumer, and Author) said “Ahmet Yiğider consistently grounds his artistic practice in a multisensory experience. This is a conscious choice—one where he sometimes brings a particular sense to the forefront while allowing others to play supporting roles. In this exhibition, scent extends beyond its conventional function as a medium of communication among ants. Instead, Yiğider employs the olfactory world of ants in an unexpected way—creating an interactive communication channel that connects humans through scent.”
Dilek Karaaziz Şener on The Ant Nest
Curator Dilek Karaaziz Şener highlights the central role of sculpture in Ahmet Yiğider’s artistic practice:
“While wood is his primary sculptural material, Yiğider embraces a limitless range, incorporating metal, stone, and other materials into his works and installations. In addition to sculpture, he focuses on interdisciplinary projects where sensory perception—particularly the sense of smell—takes center stage. Though his background in industrial engineering influences his overall artistic approach, he employs scientific methods in his scent-focused conceptual works, blending art and science seamlessly.”
According to Şener, Yiğider’s site-specific sculptures and installations function as a journey into memory. Each element in his work—especially the sensory experience of scent—plays a deliberate role, guiding the viewer through an immersive engagement with their own perception:
“His art has a clear objective: to awaken the sensory world of the viewer.”
Ahmet Yiğider’s Human and Nature-Focused Works
For the 9th Çanakkale Biennial in 2024, Ahmet Yiğider created Fig, Human, Soil—a piece that divided the exhibition space with suspended cotton threads and molecular scents. The installation allowed visitors to experience a transition where fig scent transformed into soil scent on one side, and human scent merged with soil on the other.
Yiğider took an experimental approach in composing the “human scent” for this project. Conducting studies under parental supervision, he focused on infants in their fourth and fifth months, as maternal milk still played a dominant role in their nutrition—one of the key factors influencing human scent. During their sleep, odorless fabric samples were placed on the infants’ necks, later analyzed using GC-MS (Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry). This process identified aldehydes and other volatile molecules unique to infant scent, integrating them into the artwork as an experiential and perceptible component.
