Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home, 2006

Lerzan Özer

Sinopale 1, “Thing”
curator: T. Melih Görgün

The idea of a Biennial in Sinop / the fact that the location was a former prison / the presence of a current project of conversion into an international cultural center / the superior title “Thing” / “the freedom of any place can be” depending on visual foreknowledge / space obsessed questions “Where will it lead me?” and the answer to “What would I do?” in a flash carried me to the past. The series of “Homeless Vehicles” by Krzysztof Wodiczko, which I had seen in the beginning of the 90’s, was a striking work, which had always remained in my memory for long years. It is a path that I find extremely remarkable in the name of transformation of life within art. In my work I have installed/assembled remotely, the earlier memory of the space; the prison, overweighed. The transformation of freedom acquired through amnesty into a freedom sacrificed for the sake of regaining the most well known/customary living conditions… The transformation of a “residence surrounded by barbed wire”, the prison, into “home” due to spaceless-ness, lack of alternative… The doormat “Home, home sweet home” which has become the icon of sheltered living zones; three houses constructed by sugar cubes attached/pinned in space with the barbed wire “sweet” formed my biennial work… While I was taking a walk around the exhibition spaces, the work itself deter- mined its location and decided upon the room of the prison guard. The writings of visitors on the walls, verses, drawings, all elements reflecting the ironical memory of the space, silently accepted their own doormat.