Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin
Alptekin and Michael Morris, his regular collaborator in the 1990s, produced many works under the collective title Heterotopia. Based on post-modern philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept, heterotopias are various kinds of “other” spaces existing in society that are for particular rituals or rites-of-passage. These spaces, which are both mental and physical, take on different forms in each culture, and might also be connected to ideas of purification, religion, transition or tradition. Different examples of a heterotopia might include the zones of adolescence and puberty or pregnancy, whilst examples of a physical space might include a bridal suite for a honeymoon, or an old people’s home. The artists initially produced numerous collages made from various bits of packaging they would collect from their trips to Ankara where they would teach, including cigarette packets, matchboxes or caviar tins. As well as two-dimensional collages, they also began to make larger assemblages for walls (which they also described as three-dimensional collages), configuring many different items they acquired alongside others bought from the Sali Pazari market in Istanbul. At the market they were inspired by the curious hierarchy of objects on display – cologne next to caviar next to scissors next to Vodka… – which had a highly idiosyncratic order not dissimilar to the collages. This act of reconfiguring fragments of the everyday formed new associations and invented spaces, floating between the concrete and the imaginary.
