Yearning for Turkish
Yearning for Turkish is the first exhibition presented in the frame of City in Translation.
The works in the Yearning for Turkish exhibition have been exhibited as part of the TransArtation! project, from 31 March to 8 April 2017 at The Byre Theatre in St Andrews, and from 12 to 25 April 2017 at The Shoe Factory Social Club in Norwich.
The exhibition is also available to view online.
“Yearning for Turkish focuses on the first language I have ever learned: Turkish.
When I walk; I observe, I get lost, I find myself in the many human traces left across urban spaces. These include shop or street names, slogans on T-shirts, advertising, graffiti, art works in galleries and in public spaces.
Once you start to look for languages around you, you never experience the spaces you occupy in the same way.
I am a literary translator; I always see the world that surrounds me in multiple languages and in translation. I recognise some of my languages – like Turkish – even in places where it is not meant to be. A word may be unintentional, that doesn’t make it inexistant. Many of these words are awakened by my imagination, and find new life in translation.”
The photographs presented in Yearning for Turkish were captured between 2012 and 2017, and are presented under seven themes: Political ● Immigration ● Empire ● Resistance ● Empathy ● Imagination ● Common Language.
Writer, Literary Translator, Artist based in Amsterdam.
Canan (she/they) publishes The Attention Span Newsletter, taking the time to reflect, to analyse and to imagine our societies through writing, art and culture; and City in Translation, fostering discourse and conversations around the art of translation.