“I am a voice in an empty suitcase forwarded into space” Bahar Nihal Ersözlü

“Palimpsests of Space: Reconstruction” is a story in the form of a site-specific performance, inspired by Josef Štefan Kubín’s fairytale “Vela”.
Its narrative explores cultural stereotypes and archetypes, femininity and masculinity, identity, taboo, transgression, a need for freedom, and the
cruelty of human nature. The cyclic nature of certain events and phantasms of birth and death, presented in the form of a Slavic folk tale suffused
with demonic elements, are the jumping-off point for reflecting on the contemporary identity and responsibility of human beings. By contrast and analogy, they inspire reflection on Europe’s present geopolitical landscape that is programmed, distorted and made unreal by the mass media.
The performance is a co-production of Studio Matejka performers, Polish- Czech group Pejzaże Pogranicza (Borderland Landscapes) and the Izmir-based collective budalasultan. The artists, who come from different cultures, social backgrounds and fields of art, will present the results of their joint work in
a historic castle, that is now being resurrected from ruins. This location is a splendid former seat of Austrian 19th-century magnates that after World War II was partly destroyed and temporarily inhabited by displaced persons. After they left, Gorzanów Castle, a mute witness to history, started to fall into ruin. The themes of uprooting, resettlement and war, strangeness and familiarity and the search for one’s identity and home will inspire the joint research
and creative work of artists from Turkey, Poland and the Czech Republic.
The piece includes texts by contemporary Turkish poet Bahar Nihal Ersözlü.

Events

25 July 2017, 8pm, Pejzaże Pogranicza: concert featuring
musicians from Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey
29-30 July 2017, 7:30pm: performances of Palimpsests of Space: Reconstruction Gorzanów Castle, Podzamcze Street 8, 57-521 Gorzanów

Ensemble:
Director: Matej Matejka – Studio Matejka: Gabriel Almagro, Agnieszka
Ćwieląg, Natalia Drozd, Aleksandra Kugacz, Mertcan Semerci
Pejzaże Pogranicza collective: Ewa Żurakowska, Łukasz Sabat, Marek
Macek, Dagmara Przewlocka – Budalasultan: Şafak Ersözlü, Metehan Kayan, Sarp Keskiner, Serenay Oğuz, Umut Sevgül – Installations: Anka Chylińska, Beata Fertała-Harlender, Ewa Kutylak – Visualisation: Michał Krygier –
Set design: Iwona Banzarewicz – Costumes: Iwona Banzarewicz, Kamila Zaremba – Lighting: Maciej Mądry – Photography: Marcin Trzpiot – Graphic design: Marcin Rosiński – Technical support: Piotr Sochacki – Concept and artistic coordination: Agnieszka Ćwieląg, Ewa Żurakowska, Şafak Ersözlü Logistic coordination and information: Ewelina Sochacka, tel. +48 696 392 972

The project is part of the programme Tandem – Cultural Managers Exchange Turkey−EU, an initiative of the European Cultural Foundation (Amsterdam), MitOst (Berlin), Anadolu Kültür (Istanbul), funded by Stiftung Mercator (Essen). The project is also supported by the District Office in Kłodzko and Gorzanów Castle Foundation.

Organizers: Studio Matejka – budalasultan – Fundacja Pałac Gorzanów – Kolektyw Pejzaże Pogranicza

“I am a ghost which is projected to his own body. I am a thought which is lost in its own body. I am a thought which built its own body. I am the flesh which is lost in tought. I am the bone in my momentary memory. I am the thought which is surrounding the bone and I am the mirror which is dressed by the flesh. I am the breathing in the flesh. I am the one which is not born and arrived. I am being reflected to the world, the ground, the movement and the others. I am a memory from the ground. I am crumbled. I am a crumbled vision in a mirror. My image is not permanent. I am a trace in the mirror. A unique spot on it…

I am an existense which is consist of thought and water. I am a thought which exists in its own body. I am a thought which spoiled its own body. I am the flesh exists in thought. I am the earth. I am the bone remainder from a ghost on earth. I am the base at my memory. I am the floor which lost the whole existense on. I am the swallower of the inferior. I am a brick which is blast off. I am bones of glass and my bricks which built my mirror are playing the role of meat. I am stepping by frames through the looking glass. I am the space which is getting far through its own.

I am pulling my self from the borehole. I am pulling every thing from the borehole which is made of water. I am pulling and pulling my self. I stay connected to a rope.  I am getting far from the roots and the depths. My steps are lost. I am a sigh. The brick is breathing. Breathing from the borehole. I am climbing up through a black hole from underground. I am a disjoined blood at a borehole made of glass. I am suffering the borehole from my blood vessel. Pieces of glass in my blood vessels. A ghost reflected to my blood. Memory. Bone.

I am pulling my voice from the borehole. My voice doesnt have a thought and a mirror. It has long resonences made of glass. It has big steps which are able to stride through all over the earth. My every room can lapse with voice. Every memory are close as a voice. A ghost can not play the role of a voice. A space falls down to the borehole. I pull the floor which became voice from the borehole.

Made of glass, brick and iron is my body. I have framed views. I built my rooms inside my own. In every room there is an empty suitcase. Only my voice fit into empty suitcases. I am a voice in an empty suitcase forwarded to the space. I am an empty space which leaves ghosts behind. I am flowing and flowing in to the bore hole and pulling my self from it.” 

Bahar Nihal Ersözlü