DÜNYALAR ARASINDA

 The exhibition “Dünyalar Arasında” offers an impressive art experience. Large-scale installation exhibition is produced specifically for Istanbul Modern with Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota’s, and main themes are memory, identity, and migration. This exhibition also representative 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Turkey. “Dünyalar Arasında” creates a powerful representation of intercultural dialogue, while encouraging its audience to think both the collective memory and individual. 

Red threads which form the basis of Shiota’s works offer a visual expression in this exhibition. The exhibition space is surrounded by these red threads that mirror a spider net or a vascular system and are structured in a way that enables the visitor to build a physical relationship with the area. 

It was my first large scale artwork visit because also we have become a part of the artwork. We can explore and discover the inside of work more closely. Main question that in my mind is “What our purpose as a human and where do we carry or replace our future and past?” Shiota has experienced migration in her life with moving from Japan to Germany 26 years ago. I think this migration is the inspiration for her artwork, and the themes of belonging, identity and home are strongly suggested. Istanbul has a unique geographical location between Asia and Europe and serves not only as a background for this exhibition, but also as a conceptual backdrop. The cultural transition in Shiota’s life, Istanbul remains “Dünyalar Arasında,” a mark of transition between East and West. 

When I entered the exhibition hall, I felt like I was in a spider web, also vascular veins so inside of a body maybe in conceptual side in a consciousness. As I got tangled up in the threads, I realized that I could not only review the artwork but also look more closely at the life we all live. Inside the network there were lots of suitcases and every suitcase presents different people in terms of identity, journey and belonging. Suitcases not only carry traces of the past, but also hopes and uncertainties for the future and the flow of life. 

A detail I realized was the way the threads were knotted. Some threads are loose while others are tangled. I think it is a representation of fluidity of life. Every human has a life story, and it covers both complexity and uniqueness, also ups and downs. Like us, threads connect each other with various intensities. 

Desing of artwork is also striking because it has a circular arrangement. This shape has reminded me of the circulation of life and continuity of time like a clock. A circulation which will never end. The connections between the future, present and past were intersecting like a life woven with threads. So “Dünyalar Arasında” provides us with a visual experience, while also encouraging philosophical questioning. 

The collective network forms a picture, and individual stories are part of it. We are contributing to this network with our own identities, belongings and journeys. In that sense, artwork encourages us to think about it. I think this artwork is a universal representation of human connection.