Ocean – Turkish Textile Biennial (2025)
Artist statement
This piece is a meditation on the ocean — a force that has shaped human history as both barrier and bridge. For centuries, the sea represented an immense challenge: an unfathomable expanse that separated lands and tested the limits of human navigation. And yet, through its crossing, civilizations met, cultures blended, and the modern world took form.
Today, despite astonishing advances in science and technology, the ocean remains one of Earth’s most enigmatic realms. While we explore galaxies and black holes, the depths of our own planet’s waters still resist understanding. In that darkness — where light fades and life forms defy logic — mystery persists. The absence of oxygen and the presence of strange, bioluminescent beings speak to a world that refuses to be tamed or fully known.
At the surface, the sea is no less powerful. Its ever-changing temperament — from stillness to storm — reminds us of nature’s vast authority and our own fragility. It is here, amid the tides and currents, that we learn about surrender, impermanence, and the humility required to navigate the unknown.
This work draws on the ocean not only as subject but as metaphor: for life, for existence, for the hidden depths of the self. It asks what it means to explore, to move through uncertainty, to listen to what resists explanation. To sail forward with both curiosity and respect.
