“Road Kill ” 2019, 180x235cm

Shweshwe textile collage, paint. Produced by CoHERE for the exhibition ” What We Forget ” at Nieuw DAKOTA

Servet Kocyigit (Turkey / The Netherlands)

Kocyigit’s translocational practice shifts between his birth country of Turkey, his current home in the Netherlands, and South Africa, a former Dutch and British colony and the site of much of his recent work. Using the symbolic form of the map to navigate between these localities, Kocyigit alludes to the social and cultural complexities that have constructed geographic borders and national identities. Through a collage of materials with strong identifying ties to specific places, Kocyigit unpacks the economic and historical roots of these artificial geographic divisions.

Road Kill, 2019

Stitching together imagined geographies, this newly commissioned work layers painting on a richly embroidered map made from Shweshwe fabric, a traditional South African cloth introduced by French missionaries. This work contrasts the free movement of commercial goods with the controlled movement of bodies. The outline of the malfunctioning vehicle upon this fictitious map highlights this hypocrisy, revealing a broken system of inequity.

My Heart is Not Made of Stone (Asia and Africa) 2016

The photographs from this series depict South African mining laborers holding antique maps taken from Dutch classrooms and decorated with gemstones by Johannesburg artists.

Linking the ecological aftermath of imperialism with the destructive practices of the mining industry, this series visualises colonisation’s dual exploitation of land and people.

Lora Sariarslan       ( from press release)

Finisage and Artist Talk  for the exhibition ” What We Forget “