Presented at documenta fifteen, the new work by artist Pınar Öğrenci called Aşît (Avalanche) focuses on the highly traumatic history of Eastern Anatolia of Turkey. Curator Anna Bitkina talks to the artist about the project and her research on the outcomes of the violent political domination in Turkey.
The mountainous Eastern Anatolia Region is home to different ethnic communities, driven for centuries by their shared land, collective survival strategies in challenging environments, exchanges of goods, knowledges and cultures. In a collective effort in which Öğrenci and Bitkina both touch upon different aspects of Aşît, the feelings of grief and guilt it centralizes and how these are connected to the local identity of the Van region and contemporary Turkish politics. Different parts of Europe currently face military invasion, cross-border unrest and ideological suppression, due to unresolved colonial pasts and imperialistic wrestling. Realising the sensitivity of this subject, they wonder if art helps us articulate unresolved historical past and traumas.