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Close to the View, In the Distance

May 2022 - April 2023
DÜZCE

The project intends to follow the traces of urbanization in the changing panoramas from the town of Konuralp in Düzce with an artistic visualization. Declared as a city by President  Süleyman Demirel in the aftermath of the 1999 earthquake, Düzce was subjected to fast and poorly planned development. Therefore, the project will use Henri Lefebvre's concept of right to the city as its theoretical foundation, while a series of landscape paintings from the 1990s TV show "The Joy of Painting" by Bob Ross, images, data, and documents collected from local residents will form its visual component.

In "The Joy of Painting," Bob Ross used to describe in detail landscapes from Alaska, where he lived for years, so his viewers could also paint them. These paintings would mostly depict trees, creeks, lakes, mountains and the sky - landscapes with minimal human intervention. They would carry traces of a peaceful realm, a safe space, untouched by the human hand. What would be the equivalent of such an iconic landscape image today? What kind of threat are the cities we live in under, how have they transformed and what remains in our memory? The project is seeking to answer such questions through Düzce panoramas.

As a resident of Konuralp in Düzce for the past 7 years, the artist has been a witness to the major transformation this city has been going through. Previously known for its rivers, lakes, waterfalls and forests, Düzce today is at the top of the list of poorly planned, most industrialized and air-polluted cities in Turkey. Its residents will tirelessly repeat that what used to be vast forests and greenest meadows not too long ago have been replaced with concrete buildings. At this point, as we contemplate our rights to the city, this project offers to look at the matter through not just the perspective of humans but also non-human creatures, to rethink Düzce’s natural landscapes in the aftermath of overurbanization and to carry the utopia one step forward.

Image from the town of Konuralp, Düzce

Seniha Ünay

Seniha Ünay was born in 1987 in Silifke, Mersin. She studied painting starting from high school and completed her PhD in painting at Hacettepe University Faculty of Fine Arts in 2015. Her artist residencies include Austria Ministry of Culture, Art and Education in 2011 and Ankara Cer Modern. In 2015, she received an exhibition award at Siemens Sanat’s “Borders Orbits” competition and an achievement award at “Young Contemporary Art Project Competition.” She was a part of Really Rottens Art Collective, which she helped found in 2012, and #yaşam #adalet #sanat workshop organized at Mişar Art by curator Kevser Güler in 2021. In 2020-2021, she facilitated the “Narrative Talks Series” at Contemporary Art Archive. She is the co-editor at Çapak Yazı-Çizi Dergisi along with Esra Oskay. She works at Düzce University Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture Painting Department and lives in the same city.

This page is published on 1 June 2022.
Last update: 8 June 2022