Artists are sheltering at their homes and we were curious about what they were up to during quarantine, so here’s ArtDog Istanbul’s Quarantine Diaries series… Today’s guest is artist, art historian and writer Nancy Atakan…
- What are some of the subjects/concepts and questions that you mostly think about?
How to get through each day is on my mind. Food of course is important. I try not to think about the future because it is totally unknown and making any type of plan is out of the question. Living the moment is important. I greet my crow each morning, give him/her a few walnuts or almonds, watch the seagulls zoom past. Work that I had begun but hadn’t been able to complete is foremost in my mind. For several years I had been researching and collecting material about time. I found many old Marif Takvim in various sahaflar around the city. Of course, I read Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü and Avner Wishnitzer’s Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire. I found a box of small clocks left from my father-in-law in 5533 (the project space Volkan Aslan and I founded in 2007) when we renovated a few years ago. Materials and ideas are waiting for me to give them form. Now, time has become something completely different than it was. I call it fluid time. I know time has passed because the erguvan trees are no longer in bloom.
In 2017-2018, I was sick and home for about 6 months. When I felt strong enough, I went to Macka park to photograph the trees. Those images of trees are fascinating to me now and turning into new art work. Since I live across from Maçka park, I can continue to watch the trees changing colors, getting foliage, becoming luscious with varieties of green from rain and sun. Today I wrote a text that had been materializing for weeks. Perhaps it is about the process of what I am making or just thoughts that pass through my mind during this period. But, whatever, this text mingles with images of trees as central players in the work I am presently making from bits of cloth and thread.
In 2000 or thereabouts I was invited to Aleppo for an exhibition. While touring the historical spots, I took touristic photographs that were of little importance then, but re-visiting them today they take on a different meaning. They are transforming into a work I call Siirsel Yankı. Research is a part of my practice, but I am not researching these places. I don’t want to know what has been destroyed by war and what remains in what shape. What I remember from looking at the photographs will become a poetic salute.
In fact even locked up at home, I can generate stress for myself because there are too many projects waiting to materialize. As a woman, I am multi-tasking, (I have heard this is a characteristic of many women) so I work a bit on one thing and move on to another having several projects materializing simultaneously while also doing housework. Of course, at home my studio is small so I have to work small and use whatever material I find or can transform. In the last few years, sewing has become a part of my practice. At the moment, bits of discorded ribbon or my table clothes or old shirts have started to look usable, mixing and matching them with whatever thread I have available. Re-thinking, re-organizing, re-using old photographs, notes, thoughts…
Until now, a major project revolved around a new website that was launched last week. Actually, I had been writing texts and organizing material and images for the past six months, but the lockdown kept me home and the process quickened. Website designers had warned me about including too much, but I couldn’t follow this advise. A young artist, Meltem Sariçiçek, made an accessible design to include almost all of my work over the last 40 years. I even included my work before 1990 when I made watercolors and worked with acrylics and collage. It actually turned into an online retrospective.
As a part of our most show “It Still is as It Always Was”, that is presently continuing at Pi Artworks London (the gallery is closed, but the show can still be seen by appointment) and will be a part of the online Art Basel Fair.
Furthermore, Kalliopi Lemos and I with Meltem Sariçiçek designed an on-line workshop for 13-14 year old girls about book binding, trees, and family stories. A couple weeks ago, we did one zoom event with a group of Girl Scouts (Izciler) from Istanbul.
The Swedish artist, Maria Andersson and I made a research based collaborative body of work about the daughters of Selim Sirri Tarcan and Ling gymnastics that was shown SALT Beyoğlu last summer. In January, most of the work shown at SALT opened at the Riksidrottsmuseet in Stockholm. While the museum is presently closed, the show remains and will continue after the museum re-opens. Our extensive research moving from Istanbul to Stockholm and back to Istanbul and now again in Stockholm began in 2012. On line back and forth, we are presently designing a book to document this project.
- What are you watching these days, what do you recommend?
I work during the day and at night I want to do nothing significant. Around 6:30 pm, we begin zoom parties with friends and then later watch something we find on Netflix. I watched Jane Eyre and Frankenstein plays and sometimes I watch opera on Metropolitan Opera’s free site, but mainly I prefer something light. Last night we finished the Irish series Normal People and a couple nights ago we watched the Swedish film, Force Majeure by Ruben Ostlund. Tonight, I don’t know.
- What genre of music do you prefer to listen to?
While I am working in my office/studio I listen to music, sometimes meditative and sometimes Country music or Bluegrass. My grandfather was a Bluegrass fiddler and I find myself returning to the music I listened to as a child. Sometimes I listen to classical music, but generally I find it boring.
- What are you reading these days?
Being over 65, until Sunday I had not stepped out of my flat for at least 6 weeks, but we have a terrace that I can use for walking. But, just walking back and forth is very boring, thus in the past weeks I started to listen to audio books. I finished The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Enchanted April, White Fragility, Hidden Valley Road, Trust Exercise along with several TED talks and the podcast, “www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com”, but still cannot get up to 10,000 steps daily.
Sometimes I read in Turkish, for instance, my daughter-in law’s book, Bir Şifa Bağımlısının İtirafları, and two books that Nora Tartaryan gave me, Zabel Yseayan, Son Kadeh and Nohut Oda. As you might guess, I am an avid reader and finish several books a week. My apartment is full of books and a few years ago, I decided to only download, but sometimes I cannot resist buying a hard copy. I just finished Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey by Kaya Genc and recently re-read Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition by Robert Pogue Harrison and Through Vegetal Being: Two Philosophical Perspectives by Luce Irigaray an Michael Marder. I have just started Lucy Lippard’s Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics and Art in the Changing West.
