Burçak Bingöl, 1976

Burçak Bingöl completed her BA, MA, and PhD in the Ceramics Department

at Hacettepe University in 2008. In 2009, she finished the photography program at The New School. Bingöl’s practice is nourished by a dialogue with personal and cultural histories, bringing into her work familiar forms and images drawn from both Eastern and Western traditions. Her productions focus on concepts such as belonging, cultural heritage, identity, and failure. Methods such as copying, tracing, dismantling, and reconstruction form the basis of her multilayered practice, which spans ceramics, video, drawing, photography, and installation.

One of the research areas Bingöl has focused on since 2017 is the transformation of blue-and-white porcelain, originally traded from China to the Ottoman Empire, into İznik tiles. “Hatayi,” a continuation of this interest, takes its inspiration from an İznik tile housed in Topkapı Palace and dated to the 16th century, attributed to the master designer Şah Kulu of Tabriz. The composition, which depicts a garden scene inspired by Chinese mythology, reflects the influence of the saz style, known for arranging diverse motifs in a dynamically interconnected manner. In “Hatayi,” legendary figures such as the Kylin and the Simurgh appear alongside the hatayi motif symbolizing a blossoming lotus flower, as well as decorative elements composed of leaves and branches. Produced at its original scale of three meters in length, “Hatayi” establishes a visual connection with the tile that inspired it through its cobalt blue tones, while making visible the multilayered nature of the cultural exchanges that took place along the Silk Road.