Fatma Bucak They burned it all

8' 47''/ 4' 17''

"They burned it all", a video installation, brings together two performances: the first enacted by the artist herself in a charred forest landscape and the second performed by ten singers in a municipal theatre in Istanbul. The synchronous videos point to the essential role of listening and speaking in healing. As the artist carefully crawls along the blackened terrain, she listens intently into the earth, now devoid of life. This endless loop of her journey is interjected by a singer who cannot make an utterance. At the same time, the singer, along with the other nine members of her choir, prepare for a performance. As it begins, they are motionless on stage, staring ahead with total concentration as though suspended in time. Although they are unable to sing it themselves, they hear their song. It interprets the phrase “they burned it all” into a lament; a sentence the artist often heard in the course of her research in villages affected by the 90’s forest burnings during the conflict in Kurdish areas. However, they sing each letter alone in a broken sentence in Kurdish–a language prohibited in the 90s in Turkey and still today not heard in most theatres. And so we hear “Her tişt şewitandin,” letter by letter.

5496

No

MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna

proprietà Ente Locale - Premio Italian Council 2020 (IX edizione)

Installation