EL/LE

on August 3, 2006 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The title of the exhibition, "El/le", has many layers of meaning in Turkish, and it is for this reason that we have preferred to retain this title without translating it into another language. The word "el" refers to both "hand" and "stranger", but the phrase "el/le", its mirror image, can be interpreted as "by hand", "to touch" or "with a stranger"

(Quoted from the Exhibition Brochure.)

EL:LE.jpg Outline of a hand fingers down, blue

There were so many beautiful things in this exhibit, which is by the 2006 graduating class of Marmara University. I began my collection of hand images here (I had begun, already, but now I am in earnest). Most of the hands will find places in entries to come. :-) (Two have been posted previously; details ought to appear if you hold the cursor over the image and wait.)

Some of the artists used deaf themes.

This work is called "Silence," by Selen Sarikaya. It includes drawings of several letters in Turkish Sign Language (which uses the British Sign Language alphabet) and the sign for WORK.
It is beautiful but curious. Sign language is "loud" visually, and clear vision is crucial. The artist has covered each of the images with a scrim that blurs sight. Deaf people are also not all that quiet. :-)

The next exhibit is a bit creepy from a distance: "What is lack of communication"? asks Volkcan Dogan, whose hands suspended in mid-air barely touch at the fingertips.