Two Shores / Concrete Poplars, 2021

While concrete poplars are being erected at a relentless pace in Dikmen Valley, my field of vision is gradually being sealed off. Within this ongoing conflict with the system, my project’s visual universe continues to expand; I keep producing new and generative works. At the same time, I persist—at full speed—in deepening and making visible an awareness of the very process that sustains me. The transformation unfolding in Dikmen Valley signifies not only a spatial change, but also a profound emotional and mental erosion. The work titled “Two Sides” seeks to render visible the impact of vertically imposed architectural structures on the individual, presented under the rhetoric of a “new way of life.” Each structure that replaces the poplar trees once emblematic of the valley becomes a “concrete poplar”—artificial extensions that mimic the rhythm of nature while simultaneously suffocating it. Questioning lost breathing spaces and split lives, this artwork opens a space where veils part.