Hera Buyuktasciyan

Galeri Manâ, Istanbul

Istanbul, PIST/// Interdisciplinary Project Space, In Situ, 2013 

Basak Senova, "In Situ", in: Flash Art, No. 292, October 2013, p. 126, illustrated in colour 

Following a four-month research and production residency provided by PIST/// in Istanbul, Hera Buyuktasciyan's exhibition, In Situ was opened in Istanbul in 2013. For this site-specific installation, Buyuktasciyan drew from her personal experiences as well as the collective memory of the historic Pangalti Hammam which was demolished in 1995 for renovation until a hotel was built in its space. With this exhibition, Buyuktasciyan wanted to reimagine and represent a space that no longer existed physically, albeit in the memory of its visitors; a phenomenon which has been around since the creation of the first human settlements and expedited with the rapid transformation of the modern day society. 

"As a metaphoric structure the hammam transforms memory into a slippery ground, due to the sensuality of its smell, a bridge is formed between the perception of what is physical and what is mental. The space that was (re-)constructed in In Situ (2013) combines all these aspects by referencing the Pangalti Hammam. A new perception of space has been structured by following the same pattern of the pavement on the street, creating a link to connect what is inside and what is outside. This connection is formed not only with the physical resemblance of the soap to the cobblestone, but with the sensuality of the smell that remains dominant in the space while being spread out onto the street, just like the halls of any hammam, which always smell like soap. In this way, the non-existent space of Pangalti Hammam is revived within another context. In Situ is like a fictional and sensual imagination of a space that is beyond time.

Within many works of mine there are silent fragments of time, history and memory which remain invisible, yet give a strong sense of vivid existence. The stories or the notions that are undertaken in some of my works, containing the aspects of loss, destruction, otherness, transformation, invisibility, and so on, become the embodiment of the silent existence of these aspects and often try to propose different ways of perception. In this way what is mute and invisible comes into the scene and through space and time it becomes visible."

The artist in conversation with Basak Senova for Ibraaz, 8 August 2013.