I USED TO BE HERE
I have been trying to find the right way to start this. It’s an important one for me. And I don’t know why but I need you to hear it.
I guess I can start from where I know:
I lived in The Netherlands between 2018 and 2022, for around four and a half years. I arrived here as a teenager, not knowing where I was going. Then as with everything I try to do, I let the story unfold itself, I let all the reasons unfold for themselves. I met beautiful people, became part of things that gave me tools I didn’t have before. At some point I left The Hague, where I was living at the time, to go back to İstanbul, the place I was born and raised.
I was moving yet again, not knowing exactly where I was going and why. To put it simply: I followed the next calling that felt like the one that could be followed.
But a short while before I left, I saw something.
Something that might even be seen as an explanation to why I am here now, standing right before you, reading this, today.
It was a cobblestone in a street in Brussels that read: I USED TO BE A MOUNTAIN.
Only then I was made aware of the fact that this place, where I had been living for a while, had no hills, no height, no sight of elevation from the ground. Whereas İstanbul, “the city of seven hills”, had given me the chance to move in between all these different levels of height, and observe what they do to the daily human experience growing up. Only in the lack of mountains, was I able to grasp their importance. So I consider this place to be the starting point of my climbing route. Rather ironic. It is from here that the story unfolds. And today I will attempt to tell you this story.
There is something incredibly nostalgic about it all:
At the time, I actually really liked when I wrote, and what I wrote, when no one read or heard it. When I didn’t do it to climb or to reach anywhere; to be heard or to “do” or “be” something. It was just me, the idea of writing, the idea of performing, the idea of the mountain, the idea of the audience, or now that I’m looking back, perhaps even the idea of myself.
I liked the excitement before the climb. I liked looking at the mountain, raising my head, looking up, in awe. (raises head up) I liked the moment before I started the climb, which again, happened somewhere around here, where we are now.
But the climb eventually started. More people have read or heard the things I wrote since the last time I was here. More people held my business card in their hands, put it in their wallet or threw in a corner for it to come across useful one day. I mean I had to have a business card to begin with! (opens both hands towards the audience, expecting to spark a shock) I was climbing! (again) In 5 different designs to be exact. Part of me feels present tense seen and the other part is still waiting to come across useful for one future day. The thought of this comforted me.
The more I climbed, the more I thought about climbing, the more I underlined the climb itself, and pointed out to the fact that that’s most probably all we are doing. I’ve used every source I possibly could at any given time, to let people know I was indeed climbing, and climbing in this exact way towards this exact direction. I invited them to watch me perform, I let them know I made this new work, with these amazing people, or got into this residency or just published this book. The view, as you can imagine, got more and more beautiful as I reached new heights. It got clearer. Then I made a work about that too.
There were times where I thought I was climbing fast and there were times I thought I was climbing very slow compared to the standard, or that I was standing still even, facing the scary fact that I might fall if I don’t make the next clever move or be at the right place at the right time to meet the right people that would eventually help me climb higher. (with a lower pitch, as if mocking yourself)
There were times I also questioned, although rarely, whether the view is worth all this climbing. Or asked myself whether I actually had to climb, just because that’s what everyone else was doing in order to be seen. Because the higher you get the more people notice you. Right? (turns eyes to the audience, asks with a smile)
Around the time I was getting prepared to leave to go back home, “resting” became huge as a concept in the artistic discourse. Suddenly everybody was talking about resting, caring, slowing down, sleeping, hugging, softening up. (voice softens up) We started seeing dedicated resting spaces in exhibitions, usage of squishy materials, all sorts of objects that invite you to take a moment to sit or lay down, reflect and give love to each other. (confused, ironic) Yet on the streets and in the openings and in the academies and in the galleries I would come across sweaty climbers, unable to answer the simple question “how are you?” other than uttering “I’m very busy”, as if these words would provide an evidence for the noble act of climbing. To this day I’m still wondering how these climbers really were, what emotions crossed them in that exact moment, or whether they had noticed this one tree standing next to us, extending its branches majestically into the sky.
Then, I saw something else:
Something that might even be seen as an explanation as to why I am here now, standing right before you, reading this, today.
It was the ruins of a concrete staircase on a forgotten site in one of the Islands in İstanbul.
Because you know, the thing about mountains is that, although they present themselves as glorious geographical formations ready to be conquered with vertical movement (reads in a glorious tone), they instead suggest something way more different, perhaps sophisticated and to be honest, very deceiving.
We see people who work more, hustle like crazed hounds, and climb up the socioeconomic ladder like floor is lava. They gaze at the mountain from what they have been told to be “below”, and think if they make it to the summit, all the suffering will be over.
But no one around them tells them that a group of climbers, when climbing a mountain, have to be tied to each other with a rope so that if one falls or is left behind, the whole group has to do something about the fallen climber. The fall would inevitably require for them to stop altogether. No one tells them the reward for making it to the summit would be a mere pat on the back, and preferably given by the person to themselves, plus a really beautiful view if only you’re lucky with the weather or indeed with your own imagination.
Because you know, now that we have drones, you could practically get one, fly it over the mountain you want to climb, and still get the view without having to do the effort. Needless to say, I hate drones. I find them stupid.
Along my way, I asked some of the other climbers to climb or rest together. I’ve tied myself to them with either loose or tight ropes, so that if one did fall, we all would. So that we would have to catch each other. I didn’t mind the rules of the game. Yet some just watched, or worse, denied the rope. Some taught me more about why the rope should be there. Then the act of climbing turned into an aspiration to become someone that others might want to tie themselves to. I knew that only then the climb would mean something.
Then there were other times I searched whether there is a way to appear as if you’ve climbed higher than you actually did, to hijack the entire landscape itself. Not with the intention to get a better, higher view or to be seen more, although of course that is something we all need and I am no exception; but rather with the intention to expose the fact that the summit might be an imaginary one.
So I started climbing horizontally, slowly being convinced that no matter how much you climb, you never really reach the promised land. I left because there was no mountain for me to climb here. I became the stone that read “I USED TO BE A MOUNTAIN”. I became just a stone. A stone standing somewhere. Not knowing whether I was part of a mountain before or yet to become one - geologically speaking.
I didn’t blame the tired, busy climbers that took pride in the fact. I blamed the very system that manufactured “resting” yet again as another thing to commodify or turn into a spectacle. I didn’t feel like I was being invited on the mattress or the stuffed pillow standing on the floor in a gallery. But I didn’t feel like the summit with a capital S had a place for me to stand on either. Still, I didn’t give up the climb. I sought alternative ways to to navigate it, to make fun of it, fantasize about it, to bend it, shift it, turn it, hug it, lick it, give it, take it, squeeze it, show it, let it be, let it go, just let it.
Just as my first impulse when I saw those stairs was to climb on them horizontally. Everyday I try to gladly hand myself to the mountain, letting the mountain tell me how my body should position accordingly. Some days I hear a deafening silence. Other days it calls my name screaming. Just as my first impulse when I saw the cobblestone in the street was to stop and look. It was a mountain I was looking up at, but a stone. It was a stone I was gazing down at, but a mountain. Just as my first impulse when I realized I wanted to see hills and elevated things from the ground, was to go back to İstanbul. And just as I wanted to come back here to tell you this story, I’m gladly handing myself back to the mountain, because if you’ve been following up until now, there is no mountain, just an imaginary one; it appears when you least expect it, and disappears when you most want it.
Everyday millions of people are faced with the catastrophe we call “doing something I don’t want” or “becoming something I don’t want”. We must take it rather seriously, this attack on humanity. I survive on the mountain reminding myself that we grow liking the things we don’t want to do or become, in fact there comes a point where we even desire what we never thought we would. We metabolize it, internalize it, and before we know it, action precedes cognition. I became who I didn’t want to, but I wanted to become exactly who I am.
(silence)
By now you’ve probably understood that the way I do this is:
My story is yours and your story is mine. And I don’t just say that, I mean it. And what that means, is that I’m still trying to figure out whether it’s me who is desperately trying to hold your rope or desperately waiting for you to come hold mine. Trying to understand whether we can ever dismantle the mountain in our lifetime, or at least see it for what it is. Whether we can finally understand that cognitive understanding isn’t enough to become a better person, a better artist, a better something, but another, deeper understanding probably is.
I can’t explain to you why we change, and constantly. But I can tell you what I’ve done in face of all the things I couldn’t change. Well, I just did.
Just like I never want to fly drones or climb vertically or get mad at someone I love. Just like I want to nail the balance between leaving things in the air and grounding them safely and securely. Just like I don’t want to explain a joke or elaborate on a metaphor so that people can see what’s in it for themselves. Just like I love a long walk with a view of the mountains on a bright Saturday morning. I wouldn’t know how that feels because I never had a walk like that. I came here for the mountains but its not like I can have a walk here with a view of mountains on a bright Saturday morning. So maybe I’ll have one when I go back.
