Remembering is a performative exercise in Nilbar Güreş’s work, since it involves an imminent desire to change what is remembered while translating it in the form of an artwork. Each person remembers differently; it is an idiosyncratic and singular mark that belongs to the person in question. Güreş remembers spatially. She has a deep painterly relationship with the spatial, even though her work is mainly read in terms of her problematization of gender constructions in a post-feminist perspective. That is precisely why landscape and geography are key factors in her artistic practice, appearing as pivotal narrative agents in her re-enactments. The sites she travels to in particular series have personal associations from her past. As such, the title TrabZone (2010) is no coincidence, for the artist takes us on a special journey to a certain zone in the personal unconscious of her childhood, one marked by a particular city in the Black Sea region of Turkey, Trabzon. This is not only an attempt to reclaim the space of her memory, but also to construct an imaginary geography trespassing any rationalization. Black Sea humor has a special part in the folklore of the collective unconscious in Turkey. As one of its main cities, Trabzon is notorious for its fanatic attachment to religious and national values. Being as such, a place with many paradoxes; strongly attached to a Turkish Muslim identity, it was also one of the historic centers of Pontus (during Hellenic and Roman times), whose inhabitants are known as the very first converts to Christianity. Today, one of the strongest associations of the city is the fact that it is the hometown of Ogün Samast, the boy who assassinated Hrant Dink, an Armenian journalist which serves as an unforgettable symbol for the fraternity among the peoples of Anatolia. In short, Trabzon is a tense and intense city, a perfect setting for the artist to humorously force her viewers to look beyond the usual patterns in which they have been taught to think. 

 

Credit: Övül Durmuşoğlu