Balkan Naci İslimyeli

Blood Stain Remains, 1995, Video, 13’24”

This video, which I filmed in 1996, was broadcast continuously on a monitor placed at the centre of my installation titled ”CRIME”, presented in Istanbul that same year. Conceived in parallel with the exhibition’s concept—an emblematic archive of the crimes against humanity committed throughout the twentieth century—the video takes as its point of departure Lady Macbeth’s monologue in Shakespeare’s ”Macbeth”, in which she desperately attempts to cleanse her bloodstained hands. The identity of the queen, who begins to lose her sanity under the weight of overwhelming guilt and is engulfed by the triangle of ambition, crime, and conscience, became the source of inspiration for this work. The attempt to cleanse hands that can never be freed from blood is presented, through its agonising repetitions, as a metaphor for the enduring tragedy of humanity. I performed the work using my own hands in a washbasin filled with red paint, consciously implicating the artist’s hand in this tragedy as well. In doing so, I emphasised the unavoidable complicity between the perpetrator and the viewer, a theme that runs throughout the entire ”CRIME” exhibition. A large-scale, single-edition video still from the work was also presented in a monumental format, divided into units across the surface. ”Blood Stain Remains” was exhibited on the entrance wall of Topkapı Palace, in Berlin, and most recently at the Tophane-i Amire exhibition halls.