Analysis of the Gogo Myth, 2025
Intervention in writing, Variable measures
The work shows the deconstruction process of a work, artist’s story or pepheo text from a previous exhibition at Kirte School. The etymological origins, repetition and derivations of the words related to belonging, migration and place-making in this text, in which the artist (Büşra Aydagün) tells her migration story, are added to the text to create a new text. The artist presents this textual analysis as an analysis of a myth about Gogo.
Cultural Return, 2025
Board game (66 cards, 20 pawns), 75×120 cm
Most of the historical artifacts exhibited in museums are displaced pieces. These pieces have a past that has been displaced from the lands they belong to without the consent of the lands, through colonialism, war, trade and the politics of representation. Cultural Repatriation critiques the ways in which cultural heritage is protected and represented through the historical objects selected for the play and the act of returning these objects to the geographies where they belong.
It rethinks the political circulation of such historical and cultural objects and the debate on their return. The aim of the actors representing different geographies is to return the pieces of historical objects to the lands where they belong by giving the right answers to the questions about the return of historical artifacts, archaeological excavations, conservation and preservation, which are based on UNESCO’s “Convention on the Prohibition and Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Cultural Property through the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership”. This path in the repatriation process also makes visible the developments in the repatriation process and historical injustices through the wild cards.
Artist Statement
Meli R. Öztürk’s work is concerned with spatial memory, social archiving practices and our relationship with the collective memory. She creates new narratives by inspecting historical and public spaces, analyzing the accumulated traces at the level of materiality and meaning.
Questioning the effects of temporal and spatial dynamics on memory, the artist develops a language that creates a layering distance through techniques such as site-specific installations, dyeing with natural plant, weaving and digital counter-mapping practices. The methods she chooses decipher the physical and complexly layered texture of individual and collective memory, offering alternative narratives to the viewer. Through archiving practices, she creates indirect layers that are understood ironically and progressively through processes such as erasure, preservation and anonymization. She adopts, in parallel with the research practice she uses in her work, the methods that enable her to question ‘historical and cultural accumulation’, allowing it to give rise to new conceptual areas.
Öztürk’s practice invites the viewer to question the transparency, accessibility and semantic depth of the act of archiving. She proposes new paradigms for the mutual methodologies of transmitting historical and cultural accumulation into the future and explores pseudo-archival possibilities.
BIO
Meli R. Öztürk is an artist and culture-arts professional living in Istanbul. She completed her undergraduate studies in the Department of Arts and Culture Management at Yıldız Technical University. She is currently pursuing her double major in the Department of Combined Arts at the same faculty, as well as her master’s degree in the Department of Painting at Marmara University.
She participated in the [Tak-Çıkar] program (2024) organized by 5-5, a research area on art and equality. She was the artistic director of the performance titled Finding a Suitable Hole to Start (2024) held at çakSTÜDYO. She conducted research as part of the Memory Journey Program (2024) organized by Karakutu Association. She created visual recordings for the project Walking Archive: A Neighbourhood Practice (2025) organized by Oda Projesi at Performistanbul. She participated in the in-situ-tute: İMÇ (2025) program organized by HemCereyan. She took part in the guest artist programs of Kirte School (2025) and Daire Art Open Studio (2025), which focus on artistic research on migration.
She has published a 12-issue email newsletter series titled Meli’den Public Günce (2023–2024), which documents his work and production process. His work has been featured in the Orta Sayfa section of the 10th issue of Çapak Magazine.
Among the exhibitions she has participated in are: Toplanma Alanı, UNITE, Ankara, TR (2025); Who Opens the Door to the Wind, Alçıtepe Village Primary School / Kirte School, Çanakkale, TR (2025); BAS NO.3, Belm’art Space, Ankara, TR (2025); Taşınan Beden, Dolaşan Hafıza, Odd Art Space, Tekirdağ, TR (2025); Peki ya Sonra? (Curator: Derya Yücel), Şefik Bursalı Art Gallery, Bursa, TR (2025).
