Dedicated to planted seeds, splashing waterfalls and roaring tigers
Second Chance, 2017
Site-Specific Intervention, organic and inorganic plants, hammock, sound, variable dimensions.
This site was intervened for the occasion of the exhibition ‘Vesile’ at HAHmekan in İstanbul. Second Chance deals with the notion of designed heaven at private outdoor space contradicting with its metropolitan surrounding.
The installed live, dry and artificial plants, add a sense of estrangement and do not seem to belong to the garden. A pine and a fig tree branch comes out of a wall of ivy. A red flower appears on a dried quince tree. The garden includes many more interventions that may not be noticed at the first glance. Among the chirping of birds one hears sparrows, pigeons, crows, doves, swallows and seagulls which mostly live near seasides. The sound, recorded at the Asian side of İstanbul, slightly disorients the viewer and serves as a tool to emphasize the notion of fictional heaven and offers a second chance of imagining the earth.
“…in einem Kunstwerk ihrer Kollegin Sevgi Aka im Künstlerkollektiv HAH. Mit abgestorbenem Gestrüpp und grellen Plastikpflanzen hat Aka den Garten geschmückt, um den Kunstrasen und die Polyesterfelsen am künstlichen Teich ironisch zu betonen. Die „falschen kleinen Utopien“ will sie damit thematisieren, in die sich Menschen in der Türkei jetzt allenthalben zurückziehen: „Meine Bekannten reden alle nur noch über Tiere und Pflanzen“, sagt Aka.”
Susanne Güsten, 2017
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/aus-der-angst-wird-widerstand-5257618.html
https://www.unlimitedrag.com/post/anilar-yikilmaz-hah-in-sergisi-vesile-uzerine