Surface Conditions, 2022
Woven clear nylon thread, coated with sprayed paper pulp from copies of the 2011 Istanbul Convention and the 2021 Turkish presidential decree to withdraw from Istanbul Convention. 96 x 72’’

Surface Conditions is a series of tapestries created by power-spraying paper pulp onto a handwoven clear monofilament grid. The pulp comes from torn-apart copies of the 2011 Istanbul Convention and the 2021 Turkish presidential decree withdrawing Turkey from the agreement.

The process of making this work involves tearing and blending these documents into pulp, which is then "spat" onto woven substrates using a power sprayer. As the pulp dries, it binds the weaving’s fibres together. Remnants of these documents—fragments of Turkish flags, Council of Europe emblems, and scattered words—become embedded in the surface. Some threads loosen, knot, or break in the process, disrupting the weaving’s structure.

The Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence) was ratified after years of grassroots advocacy by women’s and LGBTQ+ initiatives, creating a comprehensive legal framework to combat violence, only to be revoked a decade later by an authoritarian government in an overnight decree, citing its alleged threat to “family values”.

I was interested in the dual aspects of social movements’ vulnerability—strength and fragility—in making these works. By working with legal texts that have been both enacted and annulled, Surface Conditions explores the generative and destructive potentials of legal frameworks and the asymmetries of legislative time—where years of advocacy and deliberation can be undone in an instant. The work also considers how law flattens and reconfigures subjectivity, shaping manufactured notions of womanhood and citizenship.

Related work: Surface Conditions, 2024