A Topography of its Own

Exhibition:
A Topography of its Own
Riverrun
27.02. 2020 – 25.04.2020

The Weight of the World
Kasa Galeri
22.09.2021 – 05.11.2021
Curated by Misal Adnan Yıldız

Furkan Öztekin, A Topography of its Own, Paper Collage, 12 Pieces, each 20 x 25 cm, 2019

A Topography of its Own is a series comprising 12 paper collages. It is an accumulation of the photographs I took in the course of various walks composed as a deframed assemblage wherein the boundaries have been removed. Fragments segmented off from streets and façades are reconfigured and trace distinct readings of form. The series also signals the notion of sites of resistance as possibility and construction of a safe space with reference to Bernard Cache’s work Earth Moves.

Written by Furkan Öztekin & Translated by Alev Ersan

“The orographic design is a design without destiny, a map without a plan. A world before man, even if we know that it is man-made. For we will see that this surface has the strange quality of being first though it is constructed and is never fully realized. What is this image? As it has no value, it has nothing obscure; as it has no meaning, it has no top or bottom, right or left; as it has no density, it is superficial, which is to say geographical and not geological; and as it has no center, its boundaries are nowhere, for any scansion would allow for meaning to emerge and would constitute objects and singularities through discontinuity. In short, it is an open surface in the pure light of weightlessness.”   

Bernard Cache, Earth Moves, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Londra, 1995, s. 18.

“Misal Adnan Yıldız küratörlüğünde Kasa Galeri’de gerçekleşen “Dünyanın Ağırlığı” isimli sergi, çıkış noktasını Furkan Öztekin’in son dönem üretimlerinden alıyor. Öztekin’in işleri özellikle kuir deneyimini, hafıza ve mekân ekseninde, sanatçının oluşturduğu topoğrafyalar aracılığıyla görselleştiriyor. Sanatçının üretimleri aynı zamanda kuir beden tasviri olmadan, kuir hafıza nasıl belgelenir sorusunu da düşündürüyor. Zamanın ve mekânın dokulaştığı, katmanlarıyla soyut belgelere dönüşen bu işlerin zincirleme yaklaşımı, küratörün sergiyi oluştururken kullandığı yöntemle örtüşüyor.”

📌Melih Aydemir, Gözetleme altında örülen aşk emeği ve Dünyanın Ağırlığı, Argonotlar, 14.12.2021

Furkan Öztekin, A Topography of its Own II, Paper Collage, 12 Pieces, each 17 x 26,5 cm, 2021