Migrating from one sociopolitical context is a liminal way of experiencing life. The migrated bodies who are exposed to being externally appropriated reclaim their own space and create a spatial dimension.

 

Regardless of in which sociopolitical territory one is, the domestic space is full of traces of their heritage and is separated by the most intimate spatial border from the exterior: the window space. A space in which their identities are tended to be displayed behind the frame of a window with the backdrop of a curtain.

 

Self-expression through symbolism and motifs has a long history that goes back centuries. Culturally thoughts, feelings, and aspirations have been expressed through symbols and motifs on various canvases. Most of those aforementioned canvases are spatial elements and objects of homemaking, whereas the skin is the canvas of the body. While the curtain is the most intimate border spatially, the skin represents the most intimate border bodily and is decorated through tattooing. 

 

Being a person who has been using tattoos as a way of self-expression and migrated from Türkiye to the Netherlands, I’ve been spectating the unique statements taking place in these window spaces myself. Through these portals opening to the identities of the migrated bodies, I find myself reenacting the same. Standing at the intersection of these two grounds of self-expression led me to allude to 'the body and the space becoming one' through the overlapping ideas in this artwork.

 

The installation is born out of dualities. It aims to put an emphasis on the interplay of the appropriation, and the idea of one’s self. The prominent motifs from the cultural heritage that I was born into and the replication of my own tattoos are embroidered on the latex canvas which stands as a metaphor for both the curtain and human skin. A collective concept of inherited identity clashes with a concept of individual identity finding its own ambivalent language.