Abdulvahap Uzunbay
"Tomar" as a Social Indicator
The wall, evoking the concepts of "belonging" related to acceptance in social life and "exclusion" related to rejection, establishes the "part-whole" relationship and brings to mind the "brick" as the constituent parts of the integrated wall itself.
As a cultural and architectural element, the brick, which is both load-bearing and restrictive, is dysfunctional on its own. When several are brought together, it becomes a difficult object to transport. The most practical way to overcome the weight of a brick as an artistic object is to make it appear or be "light". However, this lightness needs to be perceived and questioned as a cultural danger.
If the packaging papers discarded from shopping markets, which emerge as a ritual unique to today's consumer societies, are viewed as a representative source, origin, cause, and effect; artistic possibilities, probabilities, and formations necessitate focusing directly on the concept of "transformation".
The paper industry, which has become a guarantee and symbol that the production-consumption relationship, creating the impression of being endless and limitless, will never cease, offers assurance in proportion to its contribution to recycling.
The fact that brand products of mass production and their design packaging, which compete with each other to be the center of attention, become waste, is also an expression that the aforementioned assurance is not guaranteed. Indeed, a society produces itself as what and how much it consumes; the dual nature of the production-consumption principle emerges spontaneously.
Within the framework of these determinations, "making bricks from paper" as an artistic project seems highly suitable for creating a space concerning the quality, quantity, and glorification of an everyday, ordinary object by today's producer, consumer, and artist subjects.
Like a paper collector often ignored by people, rummaging through the piles of paper and cardboard behind market doors and bringing some of them home; transforming into a craftsman who subjects the collected papers to separating, shredding, mixing, combining, joining, molding, compressing, and gluing technical processes, forms the basis of the project's production process.
Finding the appropriate tools and equipment for each process, determining a suitable position for the product after each stage, and documenting each stage by video recording or photographing are also included in this process.
Ironically demonstrating that it is possible to connect art to a series by desiring and dreaming of visibility; ensuring the transformation process of an ordinary paper ball or roll into an art object and the visibility of this process, becomes the project itself.
