WOUND OF LANGUAGE

 In Wound of the Tongue, I explore the relationship between the wounds inflicted on women through sexist proverbs and idioms transmitted across generations via collective memory, and the ongoing effort to heal those wounds.

Language — one of the most powerful tools in creating cultures and passing them on to future generations — carries deeply injurious consequences when used with sexist and discriminatory references. To examine these effects, I focused on the relationship between language, object and image.

The woman who remains passive and silent under the weight of the social identity imposed upon her produces both her wound and its remedy through the act of “knitting”; repeatedly giving form to the harmful impact of discriminatory language and granting it a cyclical, almost ritualistic reality.

Unless a woman resists the cultural environment shaped by the discriminatory codes within the shared language — an environment that suppresses her femininity, belittles her, marginalizes her and renders her secondary — she continues to weave these values into the future, forming incomplete and distorted connections with the generations to come. 

In this work, where I center a large Newton’s cradle, I draw on fundamental laws of physics to highlight the necessity of making mistakes for motion, progress and growth.

Scientific studies show that even the smallest particle in the universe tends to maintain its existing position and continue repeating its previous actions. For a body to break free from inertia, it needs an external force — and a response to the consequences that force creates.

To move forward, one must act; potential energy must be transformed into kinetic energy. Like physical bodies, humans — complex beings — often hesitate to take action. At the root of this hesitation lies the fear of making mistakes.

Because of the anxieties triggered by the possibility of error, a person refuses to set the spheres of the pendulum into motion and fails to create momentum. Yet the universe applauds movement. Everything that carries a person forward and contributes to their growth becomes possible only when they dare to make mistakes, take action, and learn from those mistakes along the way. 

 In classic fairy tales, female protagonists live within the walls of magnificent palaces built on remote, high hills — experiencing both serenity and a deep, lingering boredom. By obeying the rules laid out by the palace and slipping into the roles assigned to them, they dream of their white-horse princes while living like lifeless dolls trapped inside glass domes.

The greatest flaw of these tales is that they never allow their female protagonists the right to make mistakes.

In this installation, I invite the women who find themselves confined within various kinds of glass domes to make mistakes, to find their own paths, and to transform from ornamental, lifeless objects into real women — women with passions, flaws and wounds. 

 In this work, small amphora forms that I intentionally threw incorrectly on the wheel come together to create a larger amphora — revealing the beauty of what is unconventional, nonconforming, flawed or deemed “ugly.”

When we go beyond the accepted standards of aesthetics, the rules of the golden ratio and the taboo of “normality,” we can learn to love what is imperfect. In doing so, we begin to recognize and enjoy the aesthetic value of what is different, wrong or distorted.

We can see the unique beauty of what exists outside the norms, of what is shaped through mistakes — just like clay that cracks, collapses or warps. My piece reached its final form only on the fourth attempt, becoming a sculpture literally borne out of errors. 

 A child’s first social environment is the family, followed by school and the broader social circle. The boundaries drawn by families, schools and the surrounding community during the formative years — when memory is shaped and individuality begins to emerge — determine the limits of that child’s personal and social freedom for the rest of their life.

Children who are denied the chance to become individuals in accordance with their own nature live like caged birds with broken wings.

My work Boundary refers to children who have been constrained in harmful ways during their developmental years. Children who freely fly paper airplanes and balloons in their play begin to falter when it is time to fly with their own wings. As they are restricted by the values, traditions, customs, norms and beliefs of the society they grow up in, they drift away from the dreams they once built so easily.

The more their desires, passions and authentic choices are suppressed, the more they slip into the collective identity of the herd — losing the possibility of ever becoming truly free. 

 In this work, I focus on the woman whose intuitive, emotional, rational and feminine qualities have historically unsettled the male gaze — and whose power, confidence, courage, abilities and freedom have been continuously suppressed as a result. I invite women to remember the inherent qualities they have long been made to forget.

Women who slip into the roles assigned by a patriarchal perspective — whose confidence has been shattered, who have been othered, weakened, belittled and subjected to violence — often find themselves trapped in a deep and dangerous sleep, a comfort zone they believe keeps them safe.

And unless these women rediscover themselves, recall the innate qualities they naturally possess yet have been forced to forget, and take action; they remain condemned to be lulled into this sleep for generations to come.