Ezgi Özbakkaloğlu (she/her)
As someone who is inherently nosy about people’s stories, I utilise illustration and animation to explore layers within narratives. I am inspired by the dysfunctionality and the richness of the cultural landscape I grew up in, which shapes the direction of my work. Through the use of various printmaking techniques, such as drypoint etching and risograph, I create animations that seek to make the ineffable tangible. Often materials such as photographs or objects are aide-mémoires. I find the physicality of the printmaking process connects this materiality of memories.
‘Fuar’: A Counter-Memory
‘Fuar’: A Counter-Memory is an animation series that draws attention to the collective amnesia of the 1922 Great Fire of Smyrna/Izmir by examining the urban park, Fuar, built on top of its ruins. The destruction of 14.500 homes and thousands of exiles marks a transformation in the city’s cultural and urban fabric. As the political agendas chose to omit the topic, the following generations built counter-memories in Fuar oblivious to its dark past. The project’s aim is not necessarily of reconciliation between eras, but to emphasize the cluelessness and oblivion that endures. By layering two different printmaking techniques, the project seeks to explore and highlight the contrast between eras and to inform them of each other. The work consists of three animations; Notice What’s Around You, Caterpillar in Ruins, and The City Landscape.
You Know We Have A Saying For This
‘You Know We Have a Saying For This’ is a series of illustrations that depicts the uneasiness of not being able to fully express yourself when not speaking in your native language. The project emerges from my urge to use difficult-to-translate Turkish words and idioms in my day-to-day life abroad.
It explores the absurdity of direct translations and how one’s shared experience with a culture and language -or lack thereof- alters and complicates their understanding of the reality that surrounds them. The final work consists of 7 pieces of work.
