Turning tragedy into a fine tribute
WHAT do you do when you live through a terrible ordeal? In the past, when mental health wasn’t as talked about as it is today, we would probably try to soldier on and instead of talking about any distressing experiences we would try to bury or erase them. Yet such memories are unlikely to disappear, and can be triggered by any number of unintentional prompts.
Forty years ago, Sümer Erek was studying fine art at Mimar Sinan University in İstanbul. At that time, virtually all Turkish Cypriots wishing to pursue higher education would do so in Turkey. It was a “home from home”, but in the latter half of the 1970s, the climate across the country was very different.
Social, political and economic problems had caused deep unrest across the country. Left- and right-wing activists frequently clashed, and things started to deteriorate as the levels of violence increased. People were being murdered daily.
In 1977 Sümer, then aged 18, and his friend and fellow art student Muharrem Özdemir, 19, were abducted off a street in İstanbul and held captive by Turkish fascists. A day later, their kidnappers decided to shoot them. Muharrem died but miraculously Sümer, who was shot three times in the head, survived.
Muharrem was one of six Turkish Cypriot students to lose their lives during this troubled era. They were among more than 4,000 people who were killed across Turkey; the violence was only checked by a military coup in 1980, which paved the way for new horrors. Turkey has yet to be fully reconciled with the deep wounds left by this bloody period.
Before Muharrem’s tragic death, Sümer had begun a portrait of him. For years it was left unfinished, the memory too painful to revisit. With the 40th anniversary of his friend’s brutal execution looming, he decided to use this work and Muharrem’s last photo to create a series of artistic displays to commemorate his life.
Last year, on December 7 — 40 years to the day from when Muharrem was shot — Sümer visited İstanbul to do a one-man performance. He stood on the walkway by the Bosphorus near Mimar Sinan University, holding stylised portrait pictures of his friend. Afterwards, one of these artworks was folded into a paper boat and released into the water.
Sümer followed this up with a trip to old Lefkoşa, visiting the street where Muharrem was born and raised. He again took artwork of his friend’s portrait as a form of remembrance.
An exhibition called Unlived Days, at the Hote Gallery in Brussels, followed. It ends this weekend. Self-funded, the exhibition takes up themes central to Sümer’s style of art and life philosophy, in which he combines the imagined with the real world, weaving social and philosophical elements to explore and project a new world.
Before its opening, Sümer said: “I think I survived for a reason, I had to bear witness — to tell the story. Three bullets did not kill me, but strengthened me more.”
The London-based multidisciplinary artist called on various friends to help him create the 14,600 “unlived” days (40 years) that Muharrem had not been able to enjoy. This resurrection took the form of drawings, photographs, video screenings and a very special performance.
An installation known as the Reading Wall displayed 40 different pieces of text written by people from Cyprus, Turkey, the UK and Belgium. Among the contributors were author Aydın Mehmet Ali, journalists Cenk Mutluyakalı, Simge Çerkezoğlu, and Esra Aygın, and the current TRNC Prime Minister Tufan Erhürman.
Last Friday, some of these individuals came together with Sümer and other friends to simultaneously read aloud the text in different languages. Their unrehearsed performance turned into a collective ritual with vocal improvisation. Those present said the humming sound from the readers gave off an incredible musical resonance that created a mysterious atmosphere in the gallery, giving rise to intense emotions.
The words, interpreted and read out loud in a unique way by each participant, turned into cries and tunes filling the gallery air, aided by the haunting voice of Anatolian songstress Olcay Bayır. These collective sounds flowed into the infinity of space, while forming a powerful shared experience.
I’ve known Sümer for 20 years. He is a brilliant, highly original artist whose stunning work always makes me think about humanity and the world around us, from his Upside Down House to his recent Yeasting the Canvas, which used food as a metaphor for the planet and human identities.
Through mutual friends, I have known about his terrible tragedy, but I never felt it right to bring it up. That trauma of 40 years ago has no doubt played a central role in his personal and artistic development, and I can’t think of a more cathartic way to honour his friend and make peace with his past than this new and timely work.
RIP Muharrem Özdemir, 19581977.