Fatma Bucak

Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain de Nice | France

SAHA supports Fatma Bucak’s project in the group exhibition titled "Devenir Fleur (Turning into a Flower)" held at the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporaine (MAMAC) in Nice, held between 10 November 2022 – 30 April 2023.

Largely used in perfume and cosmetics industries, the Damascus rose has been known for its spellbinding fragrance since Antiquity. However, the delocalization of production and the Syrian civil war are annihilating the presence of this flower in its country of origin. Fatma Bucak seeks to recreate the lost link by making the Syrian rose plants travel, step by step, through a network of anonymous collaborators, to exhibition spaces. Grafted there onto local rose bushes, they may be able to flourish. This risky and uncertain journey affects the condition of the roses, which do not always reach their destination.

Fatma Bucak (1984, Iskenderun) graduated from the Royal College of Art in London with a MA in Photography. Bucak also studied Graphics at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti and Philosophy at the Istanbul University. Bucak's works bring together performance, video and photography and portray observations from reality as well as constructed fictional and mythological frames. In her works, a certain stance of sexual identity brings various stories that carry truth and political power into a mise en scene. Within this view, issues such as male dominance, religion, cultural displacement, presence and absence are tackled with a clearly pragmatic approach. Fatma Bucak lives and works in Turin and Istanbul.

MAMAC offers a dive in the International Postwar Art from 1950’s to nowadays. With a collection rich in more than 1 400 works by 370 artists, (with an average of 200 on display), the museum offers – among others – an original dialogue between the European New Realism and American Pop Art. The museum also displays key works of minimal art and arte povera.