All the sweet things they whispered into my ear
It was 2018, bunch of magical people came together and created a happening called "Nothing is certain / Kesin birşey yok" in the House of Strange, Arabahmet, Lefkoşa. This wasn't the first time that they got together and transformed a living space into a magic space. This time the collective worked on gender, fluidity, uncertainty of the times we are living in, roles and dismantling of them.
Back in the day when I couldn't afford therapy and also didn't know which psychologist is the right one for me, I decided to take all the things men said to me that left a mark, about me and my body and personality and my womanhood, and turn it into a kind of a techno song/ soundscape. And then I thought, I should be more brave with this material and use it as a background track for a durational solo performance (mind you this was the first time I was doing a solo performance)! And then I was like, I'm gonna take it even further and do it in a character throughout the entire event and go and interact with as many people as possible.
And as I did that, with every woman/non-binary/LGBTQ+ person, I got incredible support and revelations. I heard "me too", "something similar happened to me as well". "Oh my god I thought I was the only one!" and "I can't believe this happened to you too." and with straight men I got " I didn't know it was this bad!", "did he really say that?", "Are you sure you remember it right?" and "what were you doing at the time?".
My motto was, they gave me this, and I turned it into this. On the ground I also wrote the initials of the men I knew and with some made the mistake of dating, as contributors, of course I don't know the names of some, since they were strangers in the street, but the ones I knew were acknowledged for their contribution - Did any of them show up? no, but it's ok.
PS. I also have some footage that I will be editing - any day now! but these shots are from that footage plus some collected instagram photographs from people. We are great at making magic and not so great at archiving.
