(WRITING-DRAWING-CLIMBING)
SAHA Studio 8. dönem / 8th term
2021 yılından beri çeşitli karşılıklarını aradığım dağ ve tırmanış araştırmasını bir araya getiren el yapımı kitap. Kitabın üzerine sabitlendiği ve stüdyo sürecinde modifiye edilmiş eski masa. Masanın üzerine dengelenmiş iki parça duralit. Duvara yerleştirilmiş kağıt üzeri pasteller.
Handmade book gathering research upon mountains and climbing since 2021. Old desk modified during the studio process, on which the book is stabilized. Two pieces of hardboard balanced on the desk. Pastels on paper installed on the wall.
Dokümentasyon / documentation: Kayhan Kaygusuz, Zeynep Gürler
Her şey 2021 yılında Brüksel’de Quai à la Chaux’da bulunan bir kaldırım taşıyla karşılaşmamla başladı. O zamanlar ikamet ettiğim ve tamamı deniz seviyesinin altında yer alan Hollanda’dan yalnızca birkaç kilometre ötedeydi bu taş. Yıllardır içinde bulunduğum coğrafi yükselti yoksunluğunun yanı sıra, kendisinden çok daha büyük ölçekte bir yeryüzü kütlesine işaret ederek, parça-bütün, ölçek ve boyut ilişkileri hakkında basit ama heybetli bir şekilde konuşuyordu. Belçika’dan Hollanda’ya geri dönmemin hemen ardından Lahey’de bir performans programına davet edildim. Dağlar hakkında düşünmeye henüz başlamamıştım. Sahnedeki tırmanışı tek başıma gerçekleştirmek istemediğimden o zamanlar aynı şehirde yaşadığım yazar arkadaşım Aleksandra Komsta’ya ulaştım ve kaldırım taşında yazan cümlenin ardından “I USED TO BE A MOUNTAIN” isimli performansı beraber gerçekleştirdik. Coğrafi zirveler ve etekler yazılarımda insanın kendi zirveleri ve etekleri, tırmanma pratikleri, korkuları ve arzularıyla paralellikler kurmaya başladı. Dağ ve tırmanış terminolojisi sistemime yavaş yavaş yerleşiyordu. 2022 yılının sonunda İstanbul’a taşınmamla birlikte başlayan süreçte, coğrafi yükseltiler ufukta yeniden görünmeye başladı. 2023 yılında “I SLIPPED ON MY OWN CRUX” isminde bir başka performans sergiledim. Çizim ve resim pratiğim de dağlar üzerinden gelişmeye başladı. 2024 yılında SAHA Studio’da sergilediğim “YAZMA-ÇİZME-TIRMANMA”, son yılların dağ ve tırmanış araştırmasının çıktılarını, önsöz ve sonsöz, dağ sözlüğü ve kaldırım taşının bugünkü anlamını araştıran yeni metinler ile bir araya getiren el yapımı bir kitap.
It all started in 2021 when I came across a paving stone on the Quai à la Chaux in Brussels. The stone was just a few kilometers away from where I was livingat the time, the Netherlands, a country completely below sea level with no heights in sight. In addition to the geographical lack of elevation I had been living around for years, it spoke in a simple yet majestic way about the relationships between part and whole, scale and dimension, pointing to a land mass much larger than itself. Right after I returned to the Netherlands from Belgium, I was invited to a performance program in The Hague. I had not yet started thinking about mountains. Since I did not want to do this climb on stage alone, I reached out to my writer friend Aleksandra Komsta, with whom I was living in the same city at the time, and together we crafted and performed “I USED TO BE A MOUNTAIN” named after the sentence written on the paving stone. Geographical peaks and foothills began to draw parallels in my writings with one’s own peaks and foothills, climbing practices, fears and desires. Mountain and climbing terminology was slowly settling into my system. With my move to Istanbul at the end of 2022, the geographical elevations started to reappear on the horizons. In 2023, I presented another performance called “I SLIPPED ON MY OWN CRUX”. My drawing and painting practice also started to develop through depicting mountain-like sceneries that were flat representations rather than landscapes.“WRITING-DRAWING-CLIMBING” exhibited at SAHA Studio in 2024, is a handmade book that brings together the results of recent mountain and climbing research with new material such as a prologue and an epilogue, a mountain dictionary and new text around what the paving stone revelead itself to be saying to me currently.
It all started in 2021 when I came across a paving stone on the Quai à la Chaux in Brussels. The stone was just a few kilometers away from where I was livingat the time, the Netherlands, a country completely below sea level with no heights in sight. In addition to the geographical lack of elevation I had been living around for years, it spoke in a simple yet majestic way about the relationships between part and whole, scale and dimension, pointing to a land mass much larger than itself. Right after I returned to the Netherlands from Belgium, I was invited to a performance program in The Hague. I had not yet started thinking about mountains. Since I did not want to do this climb on stage alone, I reached out to my writer friend Aleksandra Komsta, with whom I was living in the same city at the time, and together we crafted and performed “I USED TO BE A MOUNTAIN” named after the sentence written on the paving stone. Geographical peaks and foothills began to draw parallels in my writings with one’s own peaks and foothills, climbing practices, fears and desires. Mountain and climbing terminology was slowly settling into my system. With my move to Istanbul at the end of 2022, the geographical elevations started to reappear on the horizons. In 2023, I presented another performance called “I SLIPPED ON MY OWN CRUX”. My drawing and painting practice also started to develop through depicting mountain-like sceneries that were flat representations rather than landscapes.“WRITING-DRAWING-CLIMBING” exhibited at SAHA Studio in 2024, is a handmade book that brings together the results of recent mountain and climbing research with new material such as a prologue and an epilogue, a mountain dictionary and new text around what the paving stone revelead itself to be saying to me currently.
