Still from May the fire empower me, may the fire empower my community
Video production Derin Cankaya
Video installation, sound installation, sculpture/installation and 6-hour-long live performance
As part of “Heartbeats”, the duo exhibition of Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu and Martin Toloku
Curated by Maja Smoszna and Malte Pieper
Funded by SAHA Association
Supported by Bärenzwinger, Berlin
Bärenzwinger, Berlin
2023
By remembering HIV/AIDS crisis, queer movement history of Turkey and Nazi times queer massacre, the project delves into transnational queer trauma and seeks empowerment and healing through the lines of resistance, community and rituals. The works acknowledge the loss and hold space for grief while saluting queer resilience and resistance. The whole project cherishes these two notions in the face of brutal cis-heteropatriarchy, though each work takes up different corners and reveals the complexity of resistance and resilience with a multi-layered perspective. While celebrating the queer resistance from one side, they bring out the impacts of having been obliged to resist consistently from the other; while they praise queer resilience from one side, they dig up queer shame and guilt from the other. The works seek empowerment and healing for the one who has been a target of constant violence, exclusion and stigmatization. For that sake, they question how to embrace and appropriate the stigma to break it down.
Appealing to Anatolian rituals alongside references to the queer communities and movements across different geographies and times, Fire, everywhere combines the rituals with more familiar resistance concepts for the Western subject. In this way, the project breaks away from the Western thinking infused with colonialism that values rationality above irrational rituals and takes a step toward other art production modes with a Southwest Asian perspective.
What is mine, is also yours
Photo by the artist
The sculpture/installation What is mine, is also yours delves into the historical HIV/AIDS trauma as a collective trauma of queer bodies. Branded latexes handed on chains with meat hooks refer to the HIV/AIDS crisis and approach stigmatization as a brand on the community’s skin.
Photo by Juan Saez
The sculpture/installation involves a care ritual with rose water carried every day after the opening by the exhibition assistants and/or curators as a symbol of taking active responsibility in the face of structural violence.
Video still from May the fire empower me, may the fire empower my community
Video production Derin Cankaya
The video work May the fire empower me, may the fire empower my community is a fire ritual held in a reverse triangle fire-pit (as a reference to Nazi times’ hateful reverse triangle symbol) with Anatolian herbs carried by the artist. Leman remembers three trans women from Turkey who died in flames (suicide and murder) at different times: Esra and Kaçariye from the 80s and Hande Kader, murdered in 2018. The ritual is held to give ease to queer ghosts, LGBTI+s from the past whose lives were violated because of the structural cis-heteropatriarchal violence and also empower the living queers.
Video still from Letting the dirt in
Video production Derin Cankaya
The video work Letting the dirt in addresses the stigmatisation and objectification of queerness and appropriates the stigma through the symbolic action of licking oneself ’s skin. The “licky” appropriation creates a gateway crossing the lines of queer joy, pleasure and healing.
The licking action comes from cats’ instinct of licking themselves to bond, get rid of dirt and parasites and soothe in stressful situations. Connecting with animality, Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu collects the licking from cats for a performative action opening towards connection, healing, joy and pleasure. In the video performance, Leman licks themselves as if it heals their scars and wounds and establishes a saliva-and-skin-exchange-based contact with their own body. The tongue-skin contact introduces the notion of pleasure and joy beyond their heteronormative definitions.
Video still from Letting the dirt in
Video production Derin Cankaya
Through the symbolic action turning into corporeal connection, while queer body reidentifies with strength, vulnerability and pleasure, the meaning of artistic work goes further than creating visual representations and refines with creating space to foster bodily connections beyond norms and to evoke imagination to imagine the unimaginable.
Video still from Always ready to fight
Video production Derin Cankaya
The video work Always ready to fight addresses queer resistance emerging through vulnerability while also bringing out the impacts of the constant fight on the body. The video starts with Leman standing in front of the camera very tired in a headpiece made with pearls (as a symbol of one’s wounds’ turning into one’s uniqueness), holding two long pearly bandage tapes (a symbol of transformation and care, by being used as an after-care material in general and to flatten chest in the trans community) on their shoulders as ranks, and proceeds with wrapping their hands with them. It brings out notions of defence, fight, restriction, self-protection, care, and support one after the other. In this way, the body performing for the camera at 4 am becomes a site unpacking the notion of resistance. The tiredness serves to point out both vulnerability and resilience.
Video still from Always ready to fight
Video production Derin Cankaya
Always ready to fight serves as an entry point for the fight while also relating to the affects of oppression and violence through the physical tiredness aspect of the artist’s body.
The live performance Fire, everywhere draws lines between violence and empowerment through the symbolism of boxing/punching. It turns the action of boxing/punching into embodied research unpacking the notions of resistance and resilience in queer lives. The research crosses the lines of queer grief, shame, guilt and anger while revealing queer vulnerability in the cis-heteropatriarchal world.
Photo by Juan Saez
The performance questions how one copes, resists and finds empowerment in a world where one is a constant target of hate and has to resist consistently all the time. The performance not only creates a vulnerable yet strong queer image but also reveals the complexity of resistance and resilience.
The extensive duration intensifies the research and drives it toward questioning the relation between the body and time and emerging limitations as well as the potential of the body taking time. The research is carried forward in relation to care and questions of how one can commit to the constant fight in a non-exhausting and caring manner or how to bring care towards oneself and others in such a demanding situation, such as the non-stop fight represented through the action/gesture of boxing/punching. Fire, everywhere takes up these questions by seeking ways to support the tired body throughout the live performance.
Photo by Juan Saez
The space is initiated by burning some Anatolian herbs as incense before the performance. The initiation is carried out before the live performance and is not open to the audience to watch.