Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | Click here to join mailing list
Gözde Kırksekiz (Istanbul & Cappadocia), is an Interdisciplinary artist.
As Stuart Hall mentions, “Identities are the names we give the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within the narratives of the past.” Identifying a location, a body, a room, a house, a society which molds you or a country which separates you from the others is the same as identifying your identity.
Since 2005, I’ve been using environments that are both mine and not in my art works. I have been using my new relationships and the adaptation period within them. I have been making observations regarding people, situations, memory and identity. I strive to preserve my identity within my connections with these people and places. I use my memory as my location and aim to constantly transfer my ever changing concepts into and this is why it is crucially important to me.
The most important factors which define our identity (religion, language, race, and family) also play a vital role in defining our characters. Our characters which we can also identify as our essence, are bound to change as we communicate and interact with other people. I believe all these changes happen in accordance with what we have coded as appropriate and acceptable through our life experiences. These are the moments where the memories come in to the play. Using the “materials” I inherited, I aim to define subjects such as belonging, being disposed, processes of adaptation, finding one’s self and communication. I sometimes use fictional ideas alongside my own real life experiences to define these subjects.
My focus shifts between being tied down to a location and being ripped away from it and what lies in the middle of the relationships occurring between. The reason for the contradiction between form and content in my work, lies in the belief that it’s not whether you win or lose but that the actual importance is in the journey. This is the reason behind my preference for adapting childhood games- which have no winner or loser- in my performances.
If I were to describe the environments I created in my work, I would say they are a collection of feelings taking place in the present. I use my memories as a bridge between my past and present. I use my past experiences to create moral codes which help me make decisions in my present life. As a result I do not use these codes to define and reminisce about my past but rather to live my present life. Because of this bridge between my past and present, all my actions take place in the present tense. Just like with time, these environments I create are neutralised by reason and understanding. In some instances these locations are more complicated than time and memory itself. They have a direction, a shape and repeatable order which make it easier for us to naturalise these locations.
With this perception, it is correct to assume that the environments I create in my works are not a product of anything physical but are a result of a wide collection of memories that I have accumulated.
I create autobiographic works that reflect my feelings generated by homelessness and a nomadic life. Since 2012, I have been creating a great number of performances, installations and videos exhibited in collective shows. In 2015, I have curated the PEFORMATIVITY WAVE week-long event in Den Bosch / The Netherlands under the theme “Where Should I Go Now” in Artots Gallery, also having my own works exhibited as artist-in-residence. From 2015 on, I started leaning towards more universal issues as environment, communications and relationships etc.
