Seven plexiglass panels, 70 x 100 cm — six physical, one hypothetical. Installation. 2020.
"February 28" marks a tumultuous chapter in Turkey's history, characterized by systematic discrimination against headscarved women. I was initially reluctant to contribute to an exhibition on this period. Commemoration can easily become spectacle. But I chose to participate — and found the process cathartic in ways I had not anticipated.
Parallel Actions comprises seven plexiglass panels. One features a woman gazing outward; the remaining panels show hands — male and female — whose intentions (aggressive, protective, indifferent, adoring) are left for the viewer to resolve. The seventh panel is hypothetical: it is the viewer themselves.
The installation is designed to be read from multiple vantage points. Seen from the side of the woman, she stands free — untouched by either violence or adulation. At 180 degrees, the same figure is obscured, buried beneath hands. At any other angle, the gaps between panels become visible: the space between people, the space that makes meaning possible.
I believe truth lives in this negative space. Many conflicts arise from reading the presence of emptiness as absence. But meaning cannot exist without emptiness — just as mathematics would be incomplete without zero.
Video documentation available in Turkish upon request.
