Aslı Çavuşoğlu & İnci Eviner
I felt a very strong urge to heal and bring life back to this river. Patterns withhold such a potential, and so do drawings. I went in search of a new mythology by means of very simple lines, which would somehow reflect the needs, beliefs and stories of people from very ancient cultures. I made a few sketches in the hope that they would allow me to awaken the underwater creatures eradicated by this pollution. These took shape as strips, infusing into the rice paper and becoming one with it, which flowed with the water and ink.
Within this joint with Aslı, by blending the ink that Aslı herself extracted and carried from the Ergene River with my own ink, we were able to create these figures. Sometimes, it needed to give a shape, a physical form to these underwater genies. The drawings and patterns based on these strips were mostly inspired by Anatolian and Persian cultures. At times, my figures merged with other figures that seemed to arise from these ancient cultures. In silk screen printing, in quite a similar fashion, Aslı’s prints came side by side with those of my figures that related to, say, a sexy vampire or a singularly uncanny form of fertility. Sometimes, mine hunters creeping across low hills, or scary lions, which had turned into Iranian lions waiting at the doors, waiting before abandoned houses, infiltrated my patterns. And as all these figures came together, bringing all this vitality back to life, awakening it again and again, as a shaman would, became a sort of hopeless endeavour for me.
İnci Eviner