If You Long to See The Sea Turn Your Face Up The Sky Is Like The Sea

If you long to see the sea

Turn your face up

The sky is like the sea

Sabahattin Ali

The installation consists of:

Photographs of a sculpture of Nike of Samothrace, a goddess of victory in the Greek mythology, placed on the floor, walls and ceiling of the room. On the photograph the wings of the goddess are separated from the body. They are bound together with tape. This is how I found the sculpture in an archive of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. I took the photographs and used them for my installation. Without her wings Nike seems to be unable to fulfill her mythical power.

An excerpt of Sabahattin Ali’s famous poem “Aldirma Gönül”, which is about his time as a prisoner in Sinop. It advises to look at the sky in order to see the beloved sea. Though you are very close to the Black Sea Coast you can only hear it from inside the prison area, but never see it. The text is dis- played on the floor of the room.

A field recording of flowing water of the river “Mangfall” in South Bavaria. The Mangfall river is situated in a protected nature reserve and is well known for it’s clean water. Water is a symbol for healing and life. I used the sound of water as a metaphor for cleaning. As the place for the installation i chose a small room within the sanatorium building. The work is my personal reaction and comment to the history of this building and the many dreams that were imprisoned there.