„Zuhause Atem Fenster/Home Breath Window/Ev Nefes Pencere“
Özlem Sarıyıldız
29. 06. – 13.07.2024
Opening: Fri, 28.06.2024, 19:00
Opening hours: Sat, 29.06. + Sun, 30.06., 15:00-18:00
01. – 13.07. by appointment, Tel.: +49-(0)179-8593744
“Zuhause Atem Fenster/Home Breath Window/Ev Nefes Pencere” is a solo exhibition by Özlem Sarıyıldız, featuring a multimedia installation with sound and video material. In her work, Sarıyıldız employs the complex soundscape of the night of the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey both as a foundational element and as a metaphor to articulate the country’s expansive socio-political landscape, which profoundly impacted people’s lives in the ensuing years.
Built on extensive archival research of materials from the press and the Internet, the exhibition reproduces the soundscape of that tumultuous night. Sarıyıldız also gathers personal stories and narratives to create an archive of feelings, providing an emotional map of the destructiveness of the attempted coup and the violent reactions that followed. Additionally, the exhibition offers self- reflexive insights into her personal migration story and explores methods of healing from trauma, thereby positioning it as both a personal and political narrative. This invites viewers to engage with the broader implications of socio-political upheavals. The name of the exhibition, borrowed from Etel Adnan, enriches this layered narrative.
Website Özlem Sarıyıldız: https://utopictures.com/
The exhibition is part of Project Space Festival with the opening on June 28th.
https://projectspacefestival.berlin/de
Photo: „Zuhause Atem Fenster/Home Breath Window/Ev Nefes Pencere“, video installation, 2024, Özlem Sarıyıldız
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Interview with Özlem Sarıyıldız by Şehnaz Layıkel Prange – On “Ev Nefes Pencere” / “Home Breath Window” – June 2024
First of all, I would like to share that it is a great pleasure for me to conduct this interview with you dear Özlem. As someone who has been following your concerns around making art and who is especially interested in the psychic aftermath of difficult experiences, I am very happy and curious about this exchange.
Thank you for proposing this interview and giving me the opportunity to reflect on my solo exhibition ‘Home Breath Window’ together.
I would like to start with a question, the answer to which will hopefully give us a better idea about your concern regarding this work of yours. What was the moving motivation for you? And is there something specific you would like to achieve through this work?
This project has lingered in my mind for many years, a project whose direction and form I have intermittently focused on and then set aside. I have long known that I wanted to create a work based on the sounds of the coup attempt night, using that soundscape to reflect on what we experienced that night and the subsequent events. However, finding the form of the work and having the time to revisit it took a while.
In various conversations with my friends about the attempted coup night, I realised that there are many gaps in our memories of that night. Even though we discuss many recent events, we either recall that night in a way that hinders its details or avoid talking about it altogether. There are many reasons for this, which we might discuss later, but as I saw that this state of forgetting and remembering, which I initially assumed was unique to me, is a collective state, I wanted to produce a work that slightly uncovers what remains in our personal memories of that night, thereby partially airing out the memory and making the remembered a part of the collective memory. This work is the result of that desire and, if possible, serves as a naive tool for healing from that night.
As you have already mentioned, you focus on the sounds of the night more than images depicting the incident. Why did you choose sounds primarily?
In recent history, we have experienced many events largely through narratives constructed with images, and that is how we remember them. This does not mean that there are no common images in the collective memory of the coup attempt night; however, in my opinion, the way we experienced and recall that night is predominantly shaped by sounds rather than images: This night had a unique soundscape with distinct characteristics. Therefore, “Home Breath Window” aims to partially recreate the chaotic and traumatic atmosphere through the sounds of the 2016 coup attempt night in Turkey, as we primarily witnessed it through sounds. I believe that this eerie soundscape has an intensity that creates a visceral impact, like a lump in the stomach, serving as a metaphor not only for that night but also for the broader socio-political landscape of the country. The violent sounds of that night can describe the night itself through their physical effects on the body. That is why I chose to focus on sounds rather than images when discussing the coup attempt night in this work.
In terms of visuality, you introduce a totally different video footage, which might at first instance look irrelevant, in addition to making use of existing images regarding the night in the news and it is the moving image of ploughing, i.e. moving snow away in layers. Why this metaphor? What does it represent for you?
These snow ploughing images, taken from live broadcasts of cameras on snow ploughing vehicles in Ankara in February 2021, have no direct connection to the coup attempt night and depict a different season. However, as soon as I saw these images, I felt I could speak about that night through a montage created with these distant images. The image I had been seeking had arrived!
It is difficult to describe the metaphor of these snow ploughing vehicles in the surveillance camera aesthetic in one word because the act of ploughing and the image’s aesthetics evoke a series of images for me. However, as a start, I can proceed with a few keywords that revolve around memory. The contrasting weather conditions of July and February are the first element of this tension for me. The act of ploughing corresponds to a violent act of scraping away the surface, of prying open what is covered. Because I think that remembering is, in almost every case, a violent act and mode of action, this image became one I could relate to the attempted coup night. This violent act also refers to what a coup is, on the other hand, which adds a layer other than its relation to memory.
We chose not to talk about that night for various reasons. Some are related to the conscious or unconscious motivations to choose forgetting that are inherent in traumas. Additionally, this silence is definitely also due to the risk of being criminalised by falling between the dichotomy of being a supporter or an opponent as defined by the government when discussing the coup attempt afterward. You remember, questions like who did it, did it really happen, what happened were long unaskable, and their answers were undiscussable. That pushed us to a so-called unspeakeable realm, which cannot be the case. The uncertainty of that night continues for all of us and will likely persist for many years. This work is not in pursuit of an essential answer to the question of what happened that night but is more about remembering and re-remembering it. Like every process of remembering, it is challenging for this work too, and the strenuous effort of the shovels wandering through the streets is perhaps another aspect of this metaphor.
As a metaphor, ploughing also highlights the relationship between social memory and individual memory. Revisiting events that have a room in our memories but have been covered and trying to make sense of them today, returning to that day through the emotions related to that night, and bringing those emotions back to light is part of this effort. In a sense, it is remembering that night by recalling the emotions of that night. This process is part of healing and rebuilding on both an individual and collective level, both while producing the work and while watching it together.
It is obvious that you rather focus on the emotional impact of the night. In the exhibition text, it is written that you would like to create “an archive of feelings”. It reminds us of Ann Cvetkovich ́s work with the same title (“An Archive of Feelings”), through which she introduces an alternative approach to trauma by focusing on feminist and queer experiences. Doing this, one of her main concerns was also depathologizing trauma. Could you please talk
a bit about your understanding of an archive of feelings? Is it a documentation process alternative to existing national narrative that has been created around the coup attempt or is it something more than this for you as in the case of Cvetkovich?
Ann Cvetkovich’s concept of ‘archive of feelings’ has been a cornerstone in my work for the past seven years, including this project. Cvetkovich moves beyond viewing trauma strictly as a medical or psychological disorder by focusing on feminist and queer experiences. This approach highlights that trauma is both an individual and collective experience, emphasising its broader social and cultural dimensions. Cvetkovich argues that trauma reveals how personal experiences are understood within social and cultural contexts. This perspective is vital in my approach and a fundamental principle in the exhibition.
The archive aims to make visible the traces left by that night in our memories through personal stories and narratives. While official narratives are often shaped by political and military perspectives, my archive emphasises the emotional experiences of individuals. This approach aligns with both Cvetkovich’s conceptual framework and my political objectives.
I also would like to talk a bit about the title of the work. “Home Breath Window”. Of course, it has many associations. But I would like to hear it from you. Why, how and at which point did you decide upon this title?
The day I saw the snowplows and fully decided on the form of the work, it had a completely different name. The initial name referred to the inability to access knowledge in the short term, and the resulting unease in both the body and sociopolitical life. However, this name changed over time, paralleling the impact the work had on me. Gradually, I thought the name of the work should function intermittently, referring to ruptures, different openings, and breath intervals. The trio of words that appeared in English translations of the two different texts by Etel Adnan had already been circling in my mind for a long time as a striking image. However, encountering these words in the Turkish translations of the texts as ‘Ev Nefes Pencere’ (Home Breath Window) created a closer and more profound connection for me due to both the sounds of the words in my native language and the impact of hearing them in my mother tongue. This trio could describe both my experience of the coup attempt night in Istanbul and all the decisions and states I went through afterward; it pointed to a constriction and an opening. This name expanded the work and seamlessly attached itself to it.
If we think of the title once again, all the words are directed in a way towards the inside. The first association that comes to my mind is someone sitting at home that night, listening to their own breath in the midst of all the chaos and looking outside through the window to try to understand what is going on. Does this association resonate with what you try to do?
Yes, this analogy reflects one aspect of the work. The name “Home Breath Window” avoids distinguishing between inside and outside, yet sitting at home on that night, trying to understand what was happening amidst the chaos outside, perfectly captures the fundamental emotion at the heart of the work.
Could you please tell us a bit more about the process of the work? How did you decide on the
form and the content? How did you choose and inform your subjects? How did you manage the process? In other words, how did this all evolve for you?
I’ve already mentioned that the project lay dormant for a long time, but I began to find its form when I encountered the snowplows. This work could have been designed as a single-channel video; however, from the start, I had a clear vision of how I wanted the viewer to experience the piece. I knew I didn’t want the viewer to be locked into a single position while watching; instead, I wanted them to move physically between the sounds and images. Just as we lost our sense of direction in the unsettling atmosphere of that night, I wanted the viewer to lose their sense of orientation within the space. Therefore, I decided on a multi-screen design that spreads throughout the space. I established the dominant soundscape, a collage of noises from the internet, television, and streets, as the fundamental sound spread throughout the space. In this way, I created a sound that would kick the stomach of anyone who entered the space.
Apart from this archival research, I asked approximately 50 friends to record audio of their experiences from that night. I persistently choose to speak with my friends for this kind of work. These experiences do not aim to represent the entirety of that night; rather, they are a small effort to name and share the experiences we often discuss or avoid in casual conversations. Some of my friends said they didn’t want to revisit that night, so they didn’t send recordings. However, over 40 people shared their stories. I decided that the way these narratives were listened to had to be different from the sound collage spread throughout the space; to hear an individual voice within that chaos of sound required a deliberate, intentional gesture, not something passively experienced. Therefore, I chose a more intimate listening mode for these individual stories, one that could only be heard up close with headphones. In this way, the viewer would have the experience of listening at different levels with different gestures.
So, you gathered from your subjects what they lived through and what they remember about that night. Although we already know that traumatic memories are usually blurry and have gaps as you have also mentioned, it is remarkable how vivid and detailed most of their memories regarding that night are, perhaps due to the outstanding character of the experience and the processing of them afterwards. What would you like to say about these narratives? Is there anything specific you would like to share with us?
These experiences are very precious to me. Their content provides a compelling reason to rethink. They emphasise erasing the dichotomy between the collective and the individual, highlighting their interconnectedness and constant multi-directional osmosis. Before sharing their recordings, I messaged, called, or met with each friend in person. Many thought their experiences of the attempted coup night were too ordinary to be ‘useful’ for this project. Others felt that their accounts might not be meaningful since they experienced the attempted coup outside of Turkey. Interestingly, there was a proximity in the ways people described their environment and atmosphere when they heard about the coup. They often depicted a clear divide between before and after. They mostly drew a detailed happy, peaceful summer scene, followed by a rupture that struck like a lightning bolt, bringing indefinite and bad news. These discussions and conversations helped us delve into the scope and meaning of the archive of feelings, as defined by Cvetkovich, which focuses on the emotional and psychological experiences of individuals. I am grateful to my friends for sharing their stories with me, as their openness made this work possible.
How did you plan the editing of the video footage and the sound recordings? How did you decide upon the sequence? Is there a specific feeling you would like to transfer through the editing? Another aspect that I noticed in the narratives is that the flow of the night was disrupted due to the coup attempt. In most of the narratives there is a depiction of before and after. Do you think that this disruption had an influence on the editing process of the work?
When planning the editing of this work, I aimed to reflect the fragmented and disrupted nature of the attempted coup night. The night was full of ruptures in both the flow of events and people’s experiences, lacking a linear flow, and its editing and presentation should reflect this. Therefore, I highlighted this fragmentation in the montage. This work attempts to create a montage using multiple monitors rather than one flat surface. While sequencing the audio and images, I considered the chaos, constant interruptions in information flow, and prevailing uncertainty. This was to ensure that the audience could recall or at least sense the same disruption and uncertainty. In individual recordings, people also separated their memories into before and after the events. I highlighted this fragmentation in the overall collage.
The work also has a triggering character due to its intensity. It brings us back to that night in a way with all its unbearable side. At the same time, we know that it is not so often that we talk about what had happened or what we lived through since the incident in such detail. Can we say that your work is in a way an attempt of opening “the black box” or starting a conversation, especially when we think of the nonverbal memory around traumatic events? In other words, is it an attempt of symbolising the nonverbal traces of the event?
Yes, absolutely. The work aims to start a conversation, both verbally and through its relation to nonverbal memories of traumatic events. Verbal conversation is important because words matter. However, the work also draws on nonverbal memories associated with such trauma.
Traumatic memories are often expressed or recalled beyond words or narratives. They are stored in body memory, showing through physical sensations and reactions. This understanding led me to make the body central to experiencing the work, with viewers’ movement and the powerful impact of sound being crucial aspects. Additionally, traumatic events often result in fragmented and blurred memories due to intense stress and fear, preventing full processing and conscious storage. This fragmentation is reflected in the different phases and surfaces of the work.
Overall, not discussing the coup attempt for long led me to explore how sound impacts the body. In my view, recognizing nonverbal memory’s importance is essential for creating spaces and methods to express and process these memories, aiding healing and recovery from trauma. Nonetheless, this work also seeks verbal communication to discuss what remains in our memories and from our experiences and to write our histories with our narratives.
In contemporary queer theories on trauma, “rupture” is a frequently used concept together with its potentialities, especially for creating cracks in official narratives. You also mentioned the concepts of “rupture” and “healing” up to now. How do you view “rupture” as an experience in that sense? Do you also think that ruptures have a potentiality and if so can we call this a potentiality for “healing”?
Definitely! “Rupture” is a significant concept used to challenge and create cracks in official narratives, allowing diverse experiences and identities to emerge. This idea disrupts monolithic representations and fosters new spaces for understanding and healing.
As mentioned briefly, Ann Cvetkovich emphasises that addressing trauma involves acknowledging personal and collective memory ruptures, which opens pathways to resilience and solidarity. Her approach aligns with her goal of depathologizing trauma by focusing on the everyday emotional and psychological experiences of queer individuals, validating their lived experiences.
In addition, I also make use of Jack Halberstam’s concepts of “queer time” and “queer space” that resist normative societal timelines and spaces, creating breaks from conventional expectations and allowing alternative existences. Sara Ahmed highlights how trauma and discomfort disrupt normative narratives, revealing underlying tensions and contradictions, suggesting that engaging with these ruptures can transform political and social landscapes.
In my work, in line with these approaches, I view rupture as a critical tool for engaging with the past and envisioning new futures. Rupture, in this sense, is a crack for me, a way of claiming the world as a whole rather than asking for bits of it. By focusing on the sounds and fragmented memories of the coup attempt night, I aim to create a space for exploring these ruptures and initiating healing, aligning with queer trauma theories that see rupture as a site of potentiality for new forms of solidarity and understanding.
As far as I know, you experienced that night also in Turkey. Is there a resonance between your subjects ́ experiences and yours? Do your subjects perhaps in a way speak also in the name of you? Or put in another way, was formulating a statement of yours a concern for you while editing their experiences or do you situate yourself rather as a mediator?
Yes, I experienced the night of the coup attempt in Istanbul, amidst the very sounds depicted in the sound collage. I can say I resonate with each described individual experience. In this sense, I feel more like both the owner and listener of these experiences, rather than just a mediator. Ownership here is closer to taking responsibility than possession. These are not the exact experiences I had during the coup attempt, but they could have been mine; not the same, but close; not mine, but neighbouring experiences…
As you also know, the context that the work is exhibited always adds another level of meaning. What does the fact that the work is exhibited in Berlin, Wedding in summer of 2024 mean to you? How does this or might influence the work and its impact?
It’s hard to say. The context is established not only by the fact that this work is being done in this city today but more so by the fact that I am in this city today. This work allows me to reflect on the start of my migration to Germany and reconsider a common milestone for the ‘new wave’ of migrants. Creating a piece about that night means returning to the start of my migration journey and temporarily concluding the migration-related works I’ve pursued for the past ten years. In this sense,
this work serves as the epilogue to my oral history-based migration trilogy. An epilogue that reverses the process, constructing the future or the outcomes of the story by insisting on its memory, saying, ‘let’s do and let’s see.’ However, I have to underline, this work is not about migration.
My intention was also to conclude the interview with two related questions. I know that your works mostly have a sociopolitical emphasis. What does it mean to you to do work on the sociopolitical issues of Turkey?
For me, this primarily means continuously establishing and rebuilding a connection with Turkey. However, I do not consider Turkey a self-contained entity; I evaluate it in the context of this work. This represents a position that emerges from the sum of my experiences and places of residence over the years. I am here now, but I am also there. There is no separation between these positions. I feel obligated to address the issues I care about, whether here, there, or in between. The claim is significant, but I always insist that we should not shy away from it: My works constantly question the impact of power on knowledge production and how it shapes social structures, insisting on writing our own history. In doing so, they become tools for establishing political subjectivity and aligning with those who seek to shape history. These works are a means of resistance and solidarity, a method for addressing the burning issues inside me, and a way to bring individual and collective memories closer together—a way of inhabiting the world. Talking about Turkey, in this sense, is part of this framework.
Lastly, I remember that, in one of our conversations, you mentioned that this is your last work on migration. Would you like to share with us why you reached this point and where your journey leads to?
For nearly ten years, I have been producing works utilising various materials and media, focusing on various aspects of migration, both in Turkey and Germany. Throughout this process, I believe I have addressed numerous issues that had accumulated and needed to be expressed. I cannot say exactly how long this process will continue, but for now, it feels like this period is coming to a close. That is why I refer to this work as an epilogue, the end of my migration trilogy. Now, it is time to focus on other things.
Thank you so much for sharing all this generously and I wish an impactful journey to your work.
Thank you! On this occasion, I want to thank Matthias Mayer from Spor Klübü and the workers of the Project Space Festival for hosting ‘Ev Nefes Pencere.’ Also, I thank all my friends once again for sharing their stories with me.
