Rain Beneath the Sun and the Memory of Myths: Canan Savaş and “Jackal’s Wedding” at Muse Contemporary

Rain falling out of a cloudless sky is a natural phenomenon that has inspired mythical interpretations across virtually every culture. Known as the “fox’s wedding” in Japan, “the devil beating his wife” in England, or a “rain marriage” across parts of the Arab world, this paradoxical moment is dubbed “jackal’s wedding” (çakal düğünü) in the Çayeli district of Rize on Turkey’s Black Sea coast. Canan Savaş’s exhibition “Çakal Düğünü” (Jackal’s Wedding), running at Muse Contemporary from September 18 to October 18, 2026, traces this very geographical and cultural trope.

From a Father’s Tale to Kurosawa’s Dreams

The spine of the exhibition rests on a local Black Sea legend the artist heard from her father as a child. Describing rain on a sunny day as the “silent celebration of an invisible jackal’s wedding,” her father’s tale intersected years later with the iconic “fox’s wedding” scene in Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990). That two regions thousands of miles apart—the Black Sea and Japan—could address the same natural occurrence using almost identical metaphors, without sharing a language or tradition, prompted Savaş to ask a fundamental question: How do stories cross geographies to inhabit human minds, and how does humanity arrive at shared symbols?

Wood, Rope, and Joss Paper: The Poetic Language of Material

Savaş translates this conceptual inquiry into the gallery space through an installation composed of meticulously chosen materials: wood, rope, and joss paper. Wood—recording time in the concentric rings of its trunk—represents a collective memory that is durable yet open to transformation. Rope signifies the fragile line of contact binding two elements together, even when fraught with the risk of snapping. Joss paper, traditionally burned in Chinese rituals as an offering to the afterlife, symbolizes the intergenerational evolution of culture: altering its form through flame, yet never truly perishing.

Invisible Bonds and Muse Contemporary’s Selection

Situated in Levent, Muse Contemporary offers a balanced framework for this narrative through Ayşe Pınar Akalın’s curatorially driven and dynamic gallery practice. Evolving from personal recollection into an investigation of universal oral traditions, “Çakal Düğünü” stands poised on the delicate threshold between the local and the global, inviting viewers to delve into their own strata of memory.