Sewer pipe, paper pulp, ceramic pulp, aluminum, latex, pigment, polyurethane foam, paraffin, silver gilding, green spotlight. 2025.

“Istanbul is a city of hyperbolic oddities in terms of the different types of space and artifacts that can exist in close proximity with each other. This phenomenon presents centrally in Erbas’ work. Erbaş looks at a column erected by Kanuni Sultan Süleyman to demarcate the geometric center of the city of Istanbul during his reign. Connected to the city’s history as first the capital of the Byzantine and later the Ottoman Empire and the Islamicate world, the Green Column serves as an important artifact of the city’s syncretic urban character. Within the simultaneous confines and freedom of the gallery space, Erbaș reimagines the bottom half of the column, which has been buried by asphalt and other layers of urban growth over the centuries, and contributes to the exhibition a conceptual re-excavation that strips the column of its site, function and historical significance. Through this stripping, the column becomes a stand-in for thousands of artifacts much like it, strewn across Istanbul.”

The column, now half-buried under the asphalt as the road has been paved over time, was originally designed as a functional, rotating column. Today, it stands as a half-column at the corner of the mosque. I intend to speculate on the part of the column that remains buried beneath the road. I will create a column made of fabric and tarpaulin suspended from the ceiling, exposing its hollow interior. Part of it may be transparent.

Conceptually, this work reflects the failure to preserve cultural heritage, the erasure of memory, and the idea that power loses its meaning once it dissipates. When Sultan Suleiman no longer exists—when he has no voice, no authority—the intersection of power and governance inevitably becomes meaningless. The column, left unnoticed and unrecognized, transforms into an object devoid of significance.

When does an object lose its meaning? What gives it meaning? What is the symbol of power? Monuments and structures built with intention and significance in their time—when do they lose their voice? How is the archaeology of the future constructed? Driven by these questions, I seek the ungrieved column.