İstanbul and Berlin
2019-2021
Çark
Çark
Çark explores the hypocrisy at the intersection of street and sexuality. It originated from my urban observations in selected Istanbul neighbourhoods where I both experienced and witnessed sexuality in public spaces. Through this work, I aim to visualize the sexuality that is often denied and stigmatized in public spaces. The taboo surrounding it leads to everyday gestures being perceived as overly sexualized. In this work, I play with this inversion.
Çark, meaning cruising for finding sex partners in Lubunca, a LGBTQI+ slang in Turkish.
To view the videos, the audience must adopt certain positions reminiscent of sexual acts within the participatory installation
All videos are shown in a loop. 3 of the 5 videos are projected or shown from different screens.
From the Object I; a loop video can be watched and a loop showering sound can be heard. From the small hole, a video can be seen. The second hole on top, which is non-functional and difficult to reach, is intended to create a nervous sense of curiosity.
From the Object II; two-channel my performative video can be seen. In the video, by using sexual gestures, I interact with a street food dessert; Kerhane Tatlısı word to word translation would be Brothel Dessert. It is one of the dessert’s selling traditions that is sold in front of brothels as well as sold with different names as afamily dessert.
In the context of the work, the dessert becomes to a state of a cliche as the hamburger in Warhol’s performance (‘66 Scenes From America’ by Jørgen Leth).
Object III; comes from a small building* located in one of Istanbul’s popular queer cruising areas. At night, despite the light of the street lamps, it is possible to find a hidden and unseen place in the shadow of this building.
The audience can enter the object and observe/”peep” the exhibition space through the mirror glass. At the same time, they can be also observed from the outside through the non-functioning “keyhole”. Due to the height of the object, the audience has to change their posture from observing to hide.