Walking into Turkish artist CANAN’s solo exhibition at Istanbul’s Arter Gallery is like entering a surreal, supernatural and fervently feminist world.

“Behind Mount Qaf,” the sprawling exhibition — which runs through Feb. 18 — of two decades of CANAN’s paintings, photographs, videos, sculptures and more, takes its name from the cosmic mountain of Persian and Arab legend, luring viewers into the familiar realm of allegory before the artist surreptitiously merges the personal, including the use of her own body, with the political.

“Mount Qaf is both familiar and otherworldly, but in fact it is a world we all possess: the world inside of us. Myths, fables and dreams are as personal as they are collective — part of our common subconscious,” CANAN told Al-Monitor in an interview at the show. “Everything in our individual or shared subconscious is — ultimately — political.” 

It is a bold undertaking at a time of tumult in Turkey, when many artists feel they must tread carefully between the provocative and the socially acceptable. Tens of thousands of people, including writers, journalists and politicians, are in prison under a state of emergency that followed a failed coup attempt last year, and the forces of censorship are palpable.