By Heidi Trautmann

It was  dark on April 17 when I walked from my car to the new gallery ESKI, I walked through silent deserted streets, wet from the last rain,  passed dead zones around the Selemiye Mosque, and entered, through a black curtain, the foreyard of ‘Angst’, a bit hellish, if you know what I mean, scary. Inside were masses of people, no distinct persons recognizable, a compact dark moving mass. Light was directed on sections of the walls, into corners of the dark space, illuminating various forms of scariness, a man frightened of dead rats at his feet, frightened individuals sitting on a mass of broken bricks, others hiding in niches…Some water rained on us from the leaking roof…. in the centre on a bed a nude crying out her misery of life. UUaahh. And from above us the weird beautiful music by the young musicians Çağrı Çerkez. and Aytunç Akdoğu and Simge Akdoğu, various compositions; the eerie beautiful song ‘I am making scarecrows’ let my hair stand up.

A theatre installation, it takes no wonder when we learn who is behind it, not only the artist herself Sevcan Cerkez with her clay sculptures so alive you would hear them scream if you listen carefully, but also Ulay Yilmaz, artist and Aliye Ummanel, dramaturg of the Lefkosa Belediye Tiyatrosu and Firat Eseri, the man for the effects at the same theatre who so expertly installed the lighting. According to Aliye, Sevcan created the stage atmosphere herself to fit her sculptures in and as she expresses further: Sevcan used the characteristics of this venue to transform it into a nightmare, a dreamlike, however concrete atmosphere and her sculptures cry out against loneliness, isolation, selfishness, lovelessness in our society.

Theatrical art installations, happenings, art alive, that is what is offered at ESKI.

The exhibition closes on Saturday, April 27, viewing times 16.00 – 19:00