The project revolves around my ancestral village in Central Eastern Turkey. Today, the village is surrounded by ruins and mass graves which remain untouched and unrecognized, overgrown with trees and bushes. In a way the past keeps haunting the present in the village. The
stories of what has happened in the past and of their losses are still being told in the community but remain unspoken and unacknowledged outside of it.
As Butler states “certain forms of grief become nationally recognized and amplified, whereas other losses become unthinkable and ungrievable”. I try to make those lives thinkable, grievable, and recognizable. To do so, I create an alternative version of my ancestral village in a new space and time. I create a space where the mass graves are unearthed, identified, and turned into a memorial; and where the ruins of past are visible; and the stories of people’s losses are not forgotten and acknowledged.
As Butler states “certain forms of grief become nationally recognized and amplified, whereas other losses become unthinkable and ungrievable”. I try to make those lives thinkable, grievable, and recognizable. To do so, I create an alternative version of my ancestral village in a new space and time. I create a space where the mass graves are unearthed, identified, and turned into a memorial; and where the ruins of past are visible; and the stories of people’s losses are not forgotten and acknowledged.
