Yabangee recently sat down for a heart to heart conversation with the successful international artist Burçak Bingöl. Based in Istanbul and having recently opened her new exhibition in Berlin titled “Interrupted Halfway Through”, Burçak Bingöl shared her newest ideas and the source behind her artistic motivations with Yabangee readers.
You work on various fields like ceramics, drawings, photography, installation… Are these fields in relation to one another? Can you talk about your creative process and how you decide to choose the discipline?
In the end, all of my works are in relation to each other conceptually and mostly they derive from one another. This conceptualization is the fundamental body of my productions. They develop and transform spontaneously during the process. The studio is a place where material and knowledge flow in a manner of selectivity. Therefore, choosing the discipline is not a strict process but more an intuitive one.
What are the concepts, situations, and feelings you are inspired by the most?
Places and their socio-psychology interests me a lot. The emotional layer beyond the apparent and parameters in relationships with each other and with places. I am in İstanbul for a while and this city shaped my recent works more particularly. Past and facing the past is both old –perhaps because of its oldness- and unseen subjects in here. I try to understand and materialize that. I investigate collective memory, cultural heritage, belonging, rejection, accumulation and the ways to cope with what was accumulated.
You had many exhibitions all around Europe. Can you talk about the advantages and disadvantages of being an international artist living in Istanbul and working on cultural heritage? How does it affect you and your work?
The biggest advantage is to be in the right context –to make sense of my own being and others that I share both struggles and joys of living here. Discovering new things every day. But somehow I’m observing that my works perceived better when outside of Turkey. I notice that the work can communicate faster and make its point directly abroad. As for the young artists, I recommend them trying to hear their own voices, staying honest to themselves, not being afraid of imagining, taking risks and preparing themselves for intense processes of work and producing… And being patient.
We see interpretations of Eastern culture and art with a hybrid perspective and aesthetics in your works. Do you agree with this statement?
It is certain that there is hybridity. But to be honest, what set me in motion was an inner journey which started with the realization that I had to face with this. I’m tracing an almost excavating what the previous cultures had left for me in the places I live and set foot on. Considering what could be done with it… I try to tighten my bond with this place and by understanding here, I try to understand myself.
Your works emphasize concepts like belonging, self, decoration, disorder. Can we evaluate this co-existence of various concepts and how they deconstruct and reconstruct each other as observations on our post-modern world and its problems and pleasures?
Maybe, as a creator, I do live in this time and among its pleasure and problems too… After all, I can find peace when I find integrity amongst these…
What are your thoughts and experiences on Istanbulites and the art scene in Istanbul? What are the things that draw you here the most and the things you would like to change the most?
Istanbul is such an interesting place no matter what. I think it has enormous artistic potential; there are terrific artists and artworks. Most importantly ambition and excitement exist profoundly. But, unfortunately, the inability of institutionalization -which almost became the doom of this country- affects art too. It isn’t easy to establish a permanent mode of expressions within temporal, ambiguous circumstances. That is why individuals turn into institutions…
Lastly, let’s talk about your future projects…
Currently, I have a solo exhibition in Berlin, in Zilberman Gallery titled “Interrupted Halfway Through”. Right after that, I will make a site-specific installation, in relation to the aforementioned exhibition, called “Living Inside a Tale and There Only” in İstanbul. There will be a flow from Istanbul to Berlin and then returning to Istanbul again. Also, I work on an exhibition of “Genç Yeni Farklı” as a curator for its 10th anniversary. And, I will be staying at Iaspis Residency in Stockholm during the autumn and preparing the artist book that I’ve been working on some time.
For more information about the artist and her artworks visit Burçak Bingöl’s official website. Photos courtesy of the artist Burçak Bingöl from her new exhibition in Berlin “Interrupted Halfway Through”.
