Installation, Exhibition
Soil.Water.Ash., I & II (2014, 2022) is composed of two performative videos and an installation produced during the Yatağan power plant worker’s strike against the privatization of Yatağan, Yeniköy and Kemerköy coal power plants, and the ongoing Ikizkoy Resistance against the coal mine destroying the ancient forest. The project presents staged demonstrations and poetically explores some of visible contradictions and invites the audience to think about the rights of both living and non-living things together.
Scene.
Yatağan is a small town located just outside of Muğla, the west cost of Turkey. It is surrounded by pine forests and hosts one of the largest coal burning thermal power plants in Turkey.
Backdrop.
A center of controversy. A story. A power plant. Coal. Pollution. Islamist government. State oppression. Neoliberal mandate. Privatization. Business as usual. Nothing personal. Sell. Adapt. Die. Workers. Resistance. Strike. Repeat. Lost battles. Just corpses. No souls. Jobs. Families. Homes. Bodies. Decaying bodies. Sad bodies. Collective bodies. Still bodies. Organized. Disorganized. Company unions. Politicians. Management. Law. Order. Police attack. Ferocity. Counter-attack. Relentlessness. Repeat.
Image.
Overexposed. Particles. All suspended. Excessive whiteness. Light. More light. Skins burn through the fog. Luminosity. Haze. Curse. Land expands. Layers of layers. Curtains. Mounts. Pipes. Membrane. Awareness. Noticing but not seeing. Not listening. Noise. Just noise. Opinionated white. Pictures accumulate. Rip apart isolation. All blue. Just like soil. Nature.
Death.
Constant decomposition. Rotting rocks. Harmony. Resistance to decay. An impossibility. A possible composition. A temporary solidarity of all living things. Capitalist encapsulation. Oh progress. Self-contained. Self-valorized. A temporary relationship with permanency. Wilderness. Savagery. Vicious and primitive accumulation. Horrors of encounters. Artificial peace. No environment. Just men. All is man-made.
Residue.
Fall-out. Visible. Particles suspended in the air. Wind. Only occasionally refreshing. Inhale. Exhale. Rabbits cannot breathe. Exploit. Use. Valorize. Power plants. Monuments of humanity. A total resource. Seed. Exhaust. Coal. Energized by heat. Motivated by progress. Innocence of intoxication. All that remains. Extract. Process. Engineered community. Plasticity. Enclosed areas. Social Services. Remnants of a glorious past. Cough. Sleep. Work. Eat. Shit. Repeat.
