Is the situation in the TRNC kafkaesk?

By Heidi Trautmann

…..this question was answered by a group of artists among them students of Nilgün Güney:

Ali Elgin, Ateş Kozal, Erdoğan Uzunahmet, Nilgün Güney, Pervin Öznergiz, Saadet Alpar, Zeynep Uzun’un çalışmalarının yer aldığı sergi , 11 Haziran Çarşamba akşamı, saat 19.00 da Naci Talat Vakfı’nda açılacak ve 21 Haziran’a kadar, Pazar hariç, 16.00-20.00 saatleri arasında izlenebilecek.Ali Elgin, Ateş Kozal, Erdoğan Uzunahmet, Nilgün Güney, Pervin Öznergiz, Saadet Alpar, Zeynep Uzun’un çalışmalarının yer aldığı sergi , 11 Haziran Çarşamba akşamı, saat 19.00 da Naci Talat Vakfı’nda açılacak ve 21 Haziran’a kadar, Pazar hariç, 16.00-20.00 saatleri arasında izlenebilecek.Ali Elgin, Ateş Kozal, Erdogan Uzunahmet, Nilgün Güney, Pervin Özgerniz, Saadet Alpar, Zeynep Uzun, and they definitely say YES.

Quotes by Kafka from his TRIAL or …Metamorphoses were studied and they found that many of them correspond to their country’s situation. What is ‘kafkaesk’? It is a situation that is too weird to be explained with our everyday vocabulary. Here some quotes I found in the internet:

-From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
-Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.

-The thorn-bush is the old obstacle in the road. It must catch fire if you want to go further.
-It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.
-By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The non-existent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
The quotes used for the art workshop were attached to the individual works.

FREEDOM is the big word: An old typewriter with the letters that create this word missing; they just don’t exist from the very beginning. How can a journalist write about it if he hasn’t got the means and the words to express himself? A nice installation.

A video installation showing the view a cockroach has, or what we think it has (I remember the adult world around me when I was a child, the feet were enormous, the head far away), another video with the blurred view of things. We all remember Kafka’s story about the metamorphosis of Gregor into a cockroach, the isolation he goes through – isolation from society when you are different – think different…..there is another installation on the basis of Metamorphosis, that is the apple his father throws at Gregor, three apples stuck in the wall where they have hit the wall with the drive of disgust behind it.

The works are also about imprisonment, about the life of society in cages, transparent to all, observed by those who manipulate us….by words or acts….or we look at the installation of white masks sticking out of the wall – conformity – don’t stick your head out of the masses – stay where you are in anonymity – isolated away from society the black sheep – not considered – ignored and left in the dark.

The silent cry by the individual – STOP - single and multiplied – but the more it is multiplied the less it is recognised as a cry from the living – it becomes wall paper to decorate your wall with.

Then the space of a room, the walls and ceiling covered with the notes and sketches of a lifetime, disregarded by the others, it becomes waste, crumpled up and left on the floor, it was all for nothing, a sad cognition….resignation it is.

The example of an individual to adapt to the rules of society, to try to beautify herself in order to be recognised as an equal not realising how it changes the personality, becoming more and more ugly, shown as a series of photos.

What a thought provoking exhibition at the Naci Talat House (near the Selemiye Mosque in Nicosia) on two floors. I had come with my granddaughter and great granddaughter seven years old who came running to us - Nilgün Güney was taking us around and explaining the art works – and shouting out loud… ‘what the hell does it all mean, it is pure Chaos’…and Nilgün laughed and said: ‘she has understood, a child can still recognise the truth.’

You have to see the exhibition with some understanding of Kafka and then compare it with what you are experiencing in your own life, and perhaps you can nod in confirmation. We are wearing uniforms in society, we all tend to look alike, we let it happen to be manipulated in small things, what fashion dictates, what will the others think of us.

Art as an admonisher, a workshop for a group of young artists working together and using Kafka’s philosophy as a think tank, away from decoration of our walls, away from pleasing our eyes but giving us something to think about.

The exhibition will end on June 21.