ABOUT HERA BÜYÜKTAŞÇIYAN
In her multidisciplinary practice, Hera Büyüktaşcıyan uses the notion of absence and invisibility, in order to anchor memory through unseen and forgotten aspects of time & space and architectural memory in reference to ruptures in socio-political histories. Through her sculptures, site specific interventions, drawings and films, Büyüktaşcıyan dives into terrestrial imagination by unearthing patterns of selected narratives and timelines that unfold the material memory of unstable spaces. Hera Büyüktaşcıyan was born in Istanbul in 1984, and graduated from Marmara University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Painting department in 2006. She was awarded the Emerging Artist Prize at the Toronto Biennial of Art in 2019. Hera Büyüktaşcıyan - Artists - Green . Art . Gallery Portrait of Hera Büyüktaşcıyan by Silvina der Meguerditchian Solo exhibitions include: On Stones and Palimpsests, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2020); Neither on the Ground, nor in the Sky, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2019); and Write Injuries on Sand and Kindness in Marble, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2017). Group exhibitions include: You Know Who, Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion, Turkey (2022); Enmeshed, Tate Modern, London, UK (2022); Biennale Matter of Art, Prague, Czech Republic (2022); rīvus, Biennale of Sydney 2022, Australia (2022); Soft Water Hard Stone, New Museum Triennial, New York, NY (2021); Once Upon a Time Inconceivable, Protocinema, Istanbul (2021); I heard it from the valleys, Haus N Athen, Athens, Greece (2021); What If a Journey..., Autostrada Biennale, Kosovo (2021); Permanent Spring, Delayed Bloom, Protocinema Open Air Screening Tour 2021, Multiple cities (2021); Reflections: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, The British Museum, London, UK (2021); LB02: between the sun and the moon, Lahore Biennale, Lahore, Pakistan (2020); Every Step in the Right Direction, Singapore Biennale, National Gallery, Singapore (2019); The Shoreline Dilemma, Toronto Biennial of Art, Toronto, Canada (2019); On Threads and Frequencies, GIGANTISME, Dunkirk, France (2019); Planetary Planning, Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka, Bangladesh (2018); Doublethink: Double vision, Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey (2017); Still (the) Barbarians, EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial, Limerick, Ireland (2016); Saltwater, Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey (2015); and Armenity, Armenian Pavillion, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2015) among others.
ESSENTIAL SOLITUDE
“When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.”
Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, who focuses on contemporary concepts such as otherness, alienation, personal and social memory, and transfers these issues to her paintings, photographs and installations with an iconographic visual language, with her first solo exhibition "Essential Solitude", explains the causes of subjective and social loneliness in historical, cultural, questions on an urban, spatial and environmental platform.
Based on the motto “When you point your finger at someone, three fingers are pointing back at you.”, the artist tells about the "blame" and the violence and loneliness it brings, which have driven both their socio-political and subjective lives and therefore the social masses to alienation and antagonism throughout history. highlights the facts. This compulsory loneliness and violence drags different cultural identities in the society towards an inevitable assimilation and the destruction of the urban fabrics we live in. Who can be shown as responsible for these extinctions and social transformations? While portraying someone as responsible, the question we must turn to and ask ourselves is how responsible we are for the situation.
Maurice Blanchot refers to this point in his book “Friendship”; ‘’Either man will disappear or he will transform himself. This transformation will not only be of an institutional or social order; rather, what is required in the change is the totality of existence.’’