URBAN NOMAD

“Urban Nomad” is a sculpture and performance with symbolic functionality, inspired by life in the city of Istanbul. It is a portable house in the shape of a Mongolian Yurt designed to protect its owner from the noise of a “büyükşehir”. The Mongolian tribe was one of the largest and most famous nomadic people, with a close connection to the Turkish ancestry. Their traditional house, the yurt, a symbol of nomadism is built with an easily disassembled inner structure and an outer hood. “Urban Nomad”’s hood being made out of sound insulating fabric provides temporary isolation, a short break for concentration on one’s self. Its light-weight and foldable structure makes it easy to carry around the city and it can be unfolded in seconds. The artist makes a public performance using the structure mentioned above, wandering around the city and setting it up on crowded and/or noisy places as a statement. She questions the house as a permanent and static structure as well as the quality of city life and whether it is the right environment for anyone to live in.

A house is not necessarily a home. The idea of home is much more complex than a pile of construction material and is not bound to utilitarian functions. I started developing the concept of a portable house being inspired by my need to move, and in the process of trying to define the idea of home unbound by geographic coordinates. Home is where I lead myself to be, a private space determined by my own personal choice. Instead of staying somewhere to be at home, I designed a house that would move with me, so that I could be at home wherever I chose to go.

exhibited at Studio-X Istanbul in 2016,Istanbul, Turkey