Alaturka (London, 2024)
Clay, Glaze, Crystal, Needlework
H38xD36xW46 cm
Alaturka explores the interplay of memory, tradition, and cultural transformation through a sculptural composition that brings together inherited and reimagined objects. Acting as a counterpart to Alafranga, this piece turns its gaze to the past, reflecting on the Turkish traditions and aesthetics that shaped the artist’s upbringing. It investigates the role of everyday objects—bought, exchanged, and inherited—in preserving and transforming cultural memory when carried forward into new contexts.
At its core, Alaturka reflects the aesthetics of a fading era. Inspired by 1990s Turkish interiors, the work draws on the artist’s memories of intricately carved furniture, upholstered seating, handcrafted tapestries, lace doilies, needlework, and ornate chandeliers. These pieces, once central to domestic life, now feel displaced by modernity and globalisation, yet remain vivid as symbols of a specific cultural identity and era. By reinterpreting these elements, Alaturka bridges personal nostalgia with the shifting dynamics of tradition and modernity.
The sculpture itself resembles a piece from a nesting table set but carries a distinctly kitsch quality, leaning into an odd, over-decorated style that sets it apart from the artist’s other abstract works. Crystal elements from the artist’s grandmother’s dismantled chandelier are repurposed as decorative, removable pieces, evoking both the delicacy and weight of the past. The sculpture’s surface has been carved to perfectly hold one of her grandmother’s handmade needlework pieces, embedding the intimate act of inherited craft across generations. The candelabra-like legs, referencing a time when electricity shortages were common, bring an element of forgotten hardships and nostalgic warmth from the past. These elements, though removed from their original context, carry layers of meaning in their new assembly, where tradition and modernity both clash and merge.
The work reflects how these objects, despite their seemingly insignificant or ordinary purpose, convey shifting traditions and emotions across generations. By assembling these elements, Alaturka creates a continuous texture of memory and tradition, transforming familiar objects into something enduring. It alludes to the evolving roles of these items: once practical and symbolic, now ornamental and reflective.
Alaturka meditates on the physical transformation of objects and the cultural shifts they signify. It captures the tension between familiarity and strangeness, permanence and impermanence, intimacy and adaptation. Through this, the work embraces the oddness and richness of cultural inheritance, transforming personal memory into a tactile expression of change and continuity.
