Vahit Tuna

”Life Ahead of Us…”, 2016, engraving on marble, 75 x 50 cm

Life lies ahead of us; each day we will fall into a different sleep and dream a different dream. Yet time, the river flowing slowly alongside us, was reaching a lake. In this lake, we were no longer flowing, but rippling.

2016, Engraving on marble. 70 x 50 cm.

Taken from Sait Faik’s short story The Cistern, this passage serves as a point of reference for the artist’s recent body of work. It holds particular significance for his artistic practice and his experience of producing work, especially in relation to the distinction between subjective and objective time.

The fact that most texts inscribed on marble in this geography concern heroism, epic narratives, or death prompted the artist to overturn this convention. He sought to fix this brief passage—describing both a single day in human life and a sense of eternity—by engraving it permanently into marble. First shown in Pşisel Sergi (Psolo Exhibition), the work was presented within what the artist describes as a condition of timelessness, accompanied by a kind of cosmos encompassing his practices of producing and exhibiting art, his childhood, and the future.