WUNRN
Turkey
Artist Derya Kilic's recent
exhibit portrayed familiar female faces from famous artworks all marred by cuts
and bruises. Her intent is to reflect the pervasion of sexual violence by
making viewers see that it afflicts women "they know."
Turkish artist
Derya Kilic's recent photography exhibition "To Know, To See . . . ,"
which closed in mid-January after a month at the Macka Sanat Galerisi in Istanbul, confronted viewers
with a series of well-known figures -- women painted by the likes of Salvador
Dali, Edvard Munch, Leonardo
Da Vinci and Gustav Klimt, each
bearing the marks of violence on their faces and bodies.
"I thought if I used the
famous paintings, people could look at my photos and see violence as something
that happens to a woman that they 'know,'" Kilic told Women's eNews.
"I wanted to show that violence is not just a problem of poor women, and
not just today's issue. Violence is an issue for every woman, in every place
and in every time period."
Reported incidents of domestic abuse and violence against women
in
"Violence against women is
such a part of daily life in Turkey that people get used to seeing such cases
in the news; they lose their sensitivity to it," Selda Asal, another Istanbul-based
artist, told Women's eNews.
'Aestheticized Violence'
Activist Arzu Yay, a volunteer with the Mor Cati Women's Shelter Foundation,
cautions that artistic representations of abuse can
"aestheticize violence" as easily as can media coverage.
The Turkish press has been criticized for both normalizing and sensationalizing
domestic violence, focusing on lurid details and even sympathizing with the
aggressor.
"The focus on images of the
abused also means we end up talking about violence as something that is just
physical and separate from us," Yay said. "But violence is also
emotional, mental and financial. And it's not just 'other' women who are
victims; violence and inequality affects us all."
Both Kilic and Asal, and the
other artists interviewed by Women's eNews, emphasized that
For part of her six-segment video project "Restore Hope,"
which has been shown in Istanbul, Berlin,
Belgrade in Serbia, Stockholm, Sweden, and other cities, Selda Asal traveled around both Turkey and Sweden
to explore the lives of what she calls "emotional refugees;" women
who have fled violence, and in some cases, escaped death. Filming
at shelters, she captured the hands, feet and other anonymous features of the
women, combining this footage with drawings she encouraged the women to make
about their lives. Before shooting, she "changed around the women's
rings" because people in their families might recognize them from that,
Asal said.
Artist Sukran Moral is another Turkish woman wrestling with the problem of violence
through her work, often in shocking and controversial ways. Her
installation piece "Family Night," for
example, places a screaming female skeleton at the
end of a table set with fine china inters. Moral has said "Family
Night," which she debuted at her solo show at
Love Turned to Violence
In a performance piece in the
same show, "Love and Violence," Moral clad herself in a black hijab, then used a life-size
doll to act out ritually circumcising a young girl, marrying her off to a much
older man and then symbolically whipping her to death.
"I was searching for answers
to the question of how love can turn to violence, how a mother who calls a girl
her daughter can do these things to her," Moral told Women's eNews. "It is a
violent performance but the violence in this performance never reaches the
cruelty of violence in real life."
Though female genital mutilation is not widespread in
Underage marriage and the unequal power dynamics
within relationships were the impetus for Sibel Horada's menacing-looking
piece "Topuz," a ball and chain made of hair, fiberglass, metal and fabric.
"Topuz is the Turkish word for a hair bun, but it also means mace, the
medieval weapon," Horada told Women's eNews, explaining that
the pun allowed her to create a strong image.
"As child marriage forces
girls into an extremely vulnerable situation, 'Topuz' seemed like a useful tool
to include in one's hope chest," she said.