Hera Büyüktaşçıyan, 1984

In her practice Hera Büyüktaşçıyan makes visible what is lost or veiled and addresses issues related to identity, memory and time. Büyüktaşçıyan begins her conceptual and narrative works by doing in-depth research to obtain objective information. Most of these themes are about layers of the past that shapes the present. The works are often site-specific and draw on architecture, history, and archaeology as well as archives and records, and personal and collective memory. Through the intertemporal connections that she establishes, the artist creates new readings of the present day. Her mediums of expression range from installation to drawing, text, photographic collage, video, and kinetic sculpture.

In her work titled “A Study on Endless Archipelagos,” Hera Büyüktaşçıyan fuses fragments of ceramics and architectural elements from walls originating in the various cities where she lived. The artist starts with tile fragments collected in the Church of Saint Spyridon on her home island of Heybeliada. She then expands her research process to include ruined and abandoned architectural elements from diverse geographies. The artist adds human feet cast in bronze to carry these broken pieces from distant times and places. Over four distinct platforms, Hera Büyüktaşçıyan collects these objects in compositions consisting of isles and archipelagos. Each one silently bearing a deep history, these objects are given a new life by the artist to free them from the period they are stuck in and take them on a new journey.