2023

Installation

latex, paper mache, air dry clay, plastic, wax, silicone, paraffin, pigment, polyurethane foam, wire, epoxy, metal, varnish, copper wire, resin, iPad, sketchbook.

In 1977, in his text “L’articolo delle lucciole”, Pier Paolini Pasolini compared the power vacuum in his country to the disappearance of fireflies due to artificial lights and environmental factors. The vacuum that Pasolini refers to was created when the left was intimidated by the government and erased/extinct.

Inspired by Pasolini’s article and Georges Didi- Huberman’s book “Survivance des lucioles”, this exhibition is part of a process in which I work on migration, politics, power relations, drones and war strategies. In the exhibition, fireflies appear as an abstract forms to represent the power vacuum in my own country and all the forms in the exhibition, together with the elements and images in the video question the relationships between the living and the non-living, the artificial and the natural. 

“Have the fireflies disappeared completely or are they alive after all?”

Although the starting point of the forms composing the installation were a few engravings and objects I bought in the first weeks of my stay in Paris, these forms became reminiscent of the creatures (maggots, worms) in the video. Along with the engravings I found, pipes, metal parts, and similar architectural protrusions I saw in Paris inspired the embodiment of these objects. The objects and forms I create using different materials are also intended to evoke the indistinct figures of an animal or a human being found in archaeological excavations such as bones etc. 

Photographs: Ninon Lacroix

Video StruggleforSurvival

2023
found footage video and sound, found gravures, short videos on the right side were taken in Silivri, İstanbul. 3’’17’loop.

Video Editor: Melih Kaymaz

planaria

The tapeworms and maggots seen in the left frame of the video are planarians that spontaneously come into existence in nature (in water). Their cell renewal is so fast that no matter how many pieces you cut them into, each one forms a new planaria. In other words, they can live forever. For this reason, they are used in human research in areas such as cell regeneration, the fight against cancer, the regeneration of lost limbs, tissues, and organs, and eternal life. The fireflies – also seen on the left frame – are inspired by Pasolini’s article and became the material for the video.

fireflies

Fireflies are small insects that have an extraordinary ability called bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is the result of chemical reactions that occur in the fireflies’ bodies and causes impressive light shows, mostly at night.

Firefly larvae live in the soil and prey on snails, slugs, grubs, cutworms, and other soil dwellers. Habitat loss, pesticide use, and artificial light are the three most serious threats facing fireflies, with some species more at risk than others.

war images

The images seen on the right frame of the video are war scenes from around the world that have been normalized by being shown over and over on various TV channels. The text in the video is a short essay on how the images shown on TV by the mainstream media are normalized in the human mind.

sound

One of the sounds accompanying the video is didgeridoo, an ancient Aboriginal people’s instrument. The other accompanying sound is a metronome I found at a Paris flea market, a sound blended with the sounds of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles.