.behind

2017 Installation
Wide view of an installation in a long, narrow white gallery. Numerous small white clay birds are distributed across the grey floor around a rectangular patch of dark soil at the centre. A wooden table and chair stand on the soil, with an open notebook on the tabletop. A tall wooden wall clock hangs on the far wall. Exposed horizontal ceiling beams and a rectangular doorway on the left frame the otherwise spare room.
Frontal view of the installation with a wooden table and chair standing on a rectangular patch of dark soil. An open notebook lies on the tabletop. Numerous small white clay birds spread across the grey floor behind and beside the soil in different positions and orientations. A tall wooden wall clock hangs centrally on the white wall above the table.
Closer view from behind a wooden chair facing a wooden table set within a rectangular area of dark, uneven soil. An open notebook and pen lie on the tabletop. Beyond the table, numerous small white clay birds are scattered across the grey floor in different positions and orientations.
Frontal close view of a tall dark wooden wall clock mounted alone against a white wall. A round clock face occupies the upper half of the narrow wooden case. Below it, an arched opening reveals a pale hanging element, with a small projecting wooden ledge at the base.
Close low-angle view of a small white clay bird resting on the grey floor, its head lowered and one long wing extending outward. Parallel incised lines model the feathers across its wings and body. Other white clay birds appear out of focus at different distances across the floor behind it.
Photography: Serkan Yıldırım

.behind is a space to contact what has disappeared. It was born from the need to re-handle grief, hand-in-hand with Butler as we go through this period of massacres, living in the temporality "from one attack to another".

Loss creates a distortion in time by engaging with what is no longer present, freezing the time to an extent. After intense incidents of violence and loss, grief is necessary for healing. However, grief is political and both mainstream and opposing political discourse shape whose loss matters. The ruling power only memorializes certain deaths when they support their discourse. In contrast, opposing voices exclude grief from the limits of politics, positioning it as a disempowering emotion and proposing rage instead. However, grief is the only way of reconnecting with life after loss.

.behind was realized in the following year of bomb explosions in Turkey.

Close view of several small white clay birds lying together on the grey floor. Their bodies overlap in different orientations, with pointed beaks, spread and folded wings, incised feather patterns and irregular clay surfaces visible in detail. More clay birds recede out of focus across the floor behind them.
Photography: Serkan Yıldırım
Presentations
Akbank Contemporary Artist Prize Exhibition, curated by Hasan Bülent Kahraman, Aksanat, Istanbul, TR, 2017
Credits
.behind, by Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu, installation (317 clay objects, wall clock, table, chair, notebook, pen and soil), 2017
Wall clock wooden closet production: Ismet Ozan Eras
Wall clock clock production: Recep Gürgen
Acknowledgements: Derin Cankaya, Selda Baltacı
Installation Necropolitics Chronopolitics Grief Mourning Soil
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