‘Resisting Hospitality’:
On behalf of community / migrants: The intention with the Turkish tea glass lamp is site specific to Dalston Lane, that has a big community of Turkish citizens. But due to the re-generation of the area, cleaning up and evening out the asphalt to welcome new citizens who pay higher rents, due to the huge interest in the new and cooler Dalston/London Fields area. I wanted to give attention to this, in my opinion gentrification. By letting the Turks see themselves in the window display of a newly ‘mushroomed’ gallery in this area.
The people in this area are looking back at us, gallery owners, artists, EU-citizens, café owners who all try to make money out of this area. The funny but also sad thing being that it is the same people knowing the cultural theory behind gentrification, so they are aware that they are doing this. That we are all taking part in the process of ‘killing Dalston’.
I wanted the old Turkish and Kurdish uncles of this area to be able to see themselves one last time, pay them a certain respect for living (read: surviving) in Dalston when it was all dirty, dark and criminal. I wanted to thank them for making it ready for us “money makers” and wanna-be artists. I wanted them to stop in front of my lamp and see their culture as a part of this area although things are not changing but ahs already changed! If one dark mustached uncle stops in front of this gallery and wonders and feels like going into a gallery that is soooo different from his world that means that I have done a difference to this area although tiny and ephemeral. Im sad that areas like Dalston only have a certain time of living and a best before date is long gone..
The work is both an act of using an exoticized everyday object, that anyone can obtain in inner Copenhagen, in North East London or in any other metropol today, in a new way to emancipate it from its exoticized post-colonial position. And give it a new form to save it from being exoticized.
On behalf of post-colonialism/Neo-colonialism (migration): I always wanted to give a traditional everyday object a new form, literally turning its purpose upside down. Middleastern cultures are known for their hospitality, bringing tea as the first thing whenever someone visits them. I do not think the migrants in Western European countries should be grateful for having been allowed to come to Europe. I think the best before date for that gratefulness have looong gone! We dont want to be hospitable anymore! It feels naïve after having been taking advantage of for 40 years (of course there are many sweet Danes and Europeans and there are many things I absolutely adore and feel is mine, despite the fact that I am still not seen as a part of their (read:MY culture TOO!!) culture!). Tea in itself has such colonial connotations that are hard to erase. I want to shed light on this matter. And I am sick of seaside Turkish towns selling ‘apple tea’ together with Turkish tea glasses!! wtf is appletea?we never drank it in my family?!! It seems like the poor glasses that I looove to use for Turkish tea at my parents’ house have become a trafficking object in the midst of globalization. The mere fact that the specific type of Turkish tea glass I am using for my lamp/art is called incebelli (meaning: thin waisted) suggesting a female aesthetic once again makes it an easy target for colonialist/neocolonialists/traffickers and tourists to easily grab the female subject of general warfare. I want to save the tea glasses from the filthy hands of those who buys the innocent tea glasses from NETTO and uses them for their Danish ‘hygge’ (cosy times with candles and candy) by decorating them with tea lights.
On behalf of girls/women: While growing up in a Turkish migrant family from Anatolia I often had problems fitting into the general requirements of Turkish young girls. I always felt that serving the first tea for the guests (as there are usually two tea servings for one set of guests/one visit. Once right after the guests are greeted and second after the dinner. the first one being the worst and most silent!!) was like a test, after that things were always a bit easier. Remembering the claustrofobic servicing where all eyes were directly pointed at your hands generally and everyone became silent. As they were observing your performance in my mind I often wanted to make violent or even erotic scenes. As you just want to stop being that ready to get married young bachelorette (virgin of course!!) who needs to show all of her skills in one tea serving. I was always aware that these obligated tea servings were a performative act to learn how to become a bride and a wife. And I didnt want to become a traditional Turkish male-dominated woman. Therefore I had to turn the whole tea ceremony upside down. Thus by physically drilling the tea glasses I wanted to give a picture on the defloration of virginity of Turkish girls to emancipate them from present servicing which are obscured performative acts leading to future marriages. The drillings give rise to an impossible tea serving. The tea cannot be served. The act/the gender divided tradition is thus killed.