Suruhu, 2015
- Year 2016
Spatial Installation
Nakilbent Cistern, Istanbul
Light, water, sound, 12 channel lighting control table, mechanical leverage, computer software
This installation was set in the Nakilbent Cistern, which was built to meet the water needs of the city. It was thus based on the revitalization of the cistern’s story of coming into existence. The cistern, having been distanced from its own function with the city’s changing water needs throughout history, has turned into a gallery today. Suruhu aims to make experienceable the historicality of this functional relationship that the space establishes with water, its relationship with time and memory. The installation was filled with diluted water and the atmosphere was walkable, but still filled with water. This atmosphere allows you to experience space not as a container or a carrier in which objects are placed, but as a full being, with its own climate and its own body. The homogeneous light source filtered from the end of the space creates a spatial infinity effect and recalls the water and cistern networks under the city which are not limited to the walls. The light also intensifies the visibility of water, which is the main element of the work. The light in the form of a single line that rises and falls vertically presents a compressed story of the water diminishing from the cistern over a long period of time.