Buşra Tunç, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar

Tokyo Biennale | Tokyo, Japan

SAHA supports Büşra Tunç and Kerem Ozan Bayraktar’s new project at the fall session of Tokyo Biennale, held between 23 September – 5 November 2023. Artists are participating in the Tokyo Biennale, directed by Masato Nakamura and Min Nishihara, with their installation Ghost Gardens. The artists' project proposals focusing on urban aesthetics and nature were selected among 12 projects out of 1500 international works in an open call in 2020. The artists realized their work in the "Social Dive" residency program within the biennial. 

"Ghost Gardens" is an installation situated in a vacant shopping mall warehouse, features an array of damaged digital tablets mounted to the wall and a "garden" made of concrete debris and tarpaulins. The tablets with broken screens, sourced from second-hand electronics shops, display fragmented text from the Sakuteiki, an old Japanese manual on garden design, particularly rock arrangements and their taboos. The texts, spoken by artificial intelligence narrators, produce a layered auditory environment with the intermittent repetition of the Japanese word 'rock', mapping the visual noise characterized by the repeated presence of rocks in the installation.

The concrete pieces are arranged in the installation in island-like formations, each consisting of a large central piece and smaller pieces surrounding it. Resembling rocks yet hollow within, the tarpaulins mimic natural forms while echoing common visual motifs in urban environments. Evoking construction-related activities like temporary coverings, storage, and protection, they reflect the dynamics of Tokyo's swift urbanization and gentrification, characterized by rapid cycles of demolition and reconstruction. This context combines with the ambient sounds of Sakuteki's teachings on the rules and prohibitions of stone arrangement.

The concrete pieces in the installation come from a Tokyo recycling facility specializing in leftover demolition material. Chosen with the same meticulousness as rocks for a traditional garden, each concrete piece in the installation carries its own memory from various Tokyo structures, contributing to a temporary garden that highlights the aesthetics of the everyday.

Buşra Tunç (1988) is an architect / artist whose work focuses on perception and experience in the fields of architecture, art and design. Having studied architecture, cinema and sound, Tunç works with “atmosphere” as the focal point of her work. Working with industrial and everyday materials, optical units and analog instruments, Tunç often considers structures containing remnants and memoriesfrom industrial spaces and crowded cities. Tunc has collaborated with Massimiliano Fuksas, Pera Museum, İstanbul Modern and Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade. Tuncʼs main site-specific projects are: Suruhu, Nakilbent Cistern,2015; Oculus (Msgsü Tophane-‐i Amire, 2016); Majaz, Buyuk Valide Khan, 2017. Tunc also has been involved with spatial video work in the exhibition Re/Framing Louis Kahn, Pera Museum, 2017; Remix, Akbank Sanat, 2018; Parajanov, with Sarkis, Pera Museum, 2019 in various roles in the architectural design. She recently took part in the residency program of the Cité International Des Arts.

Kerem Ozan Bayraktar (1984) is an Istanbul based artist. His works focus on spheres of influence, individuation, and transformation of objects. He employs multi-part and distributed modes of expression with an emphasis on behaviors, borders, histories of systems. His most recent installations and researches have involved objects of various scales and qualities, such as weedy urban plants, invading ships, generative images, and robot toys. Bayraktar who participated in BAK, Fellowship for Situated Practice, 2022; SAHA Studio, Istanbul, 2020 and Berlin Senate Residency Program, ZK/U, Berlin, 2019 completed his MFA and DFA at Marmara University Institute of Fine Arts. Some of the group projects that he recently participated in include Hosting Bodies, Sanatorium, Istanbul, 2021; Sentient Matter, D21, Leipzig, 2021; Busan Sea Art Festival, Ilgwang, 2021; 2021 and Sandstorm – And Then There Was Dust, Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin, 2021. Bayraktar is a faculty member at Marmara University and his latest publications are the Spirits on the Ground, 2021 and Maps of the Worlds [Turkish], 2021.

About Tokyo Biennale

Tokyo Biennale is an international art festival, which takes place in the Northeastern part of Tokyo including the four wards - Chiyoda City, Chuo City, Bunkyo City, and Taito City. Tokyo Biennale aims at creating activities to become events shared by everyone through many kinds of encounters made between us all. New groups of people have gathered in the area composed of local citizens with deep roots, as well as those from all over Japan and the entire world. While all kinds of people are living, working, and enjoying the cosmopolitan city of Tokyo, art is what connects them from across different backgrounds as it brings to life our neighborhoods’ histories and draws out the future. From here, the concept of “us” emerges and each person may even discover a new “me”. The key words are “art x community x industry” as we work with people in the area to build our own culture in our own place with activities surrounding the concepts of “HISTORY & FUTURE”.