collectorspace, March 8–May 31, 2017, Istanbul
Curator: Özge Ersoy
1.5 ton of soil, clay, flax fiber, fine grain küfeki stone, and terracotta
1 m x 1.5 m x 0.55 m

Earth ramming by Nazım Can Cihan and Sadık Atar
Documentation by Ali Taptık, Onagore

Plinth webpage
Artforum Article on Plinth
Making (video)
Un-making (video)

Between March 8-May 31, Aslıhan Demirtaş’s Kaide [Plinth]—a sixty-by-forty-inch, knee-high, rectangular prism of rammed earth—has been exhibited at collectorspace near Taksim Square. Kaide’s sharp edges and corners have softened over time, and cracks opened up on its surface, as it wisely weathered into its temporary environment. Demirtaş’s intention was to place soil as both the object and the subject of the conversation, which allowed us to explore our mutual engagement with soil—how we assume to possess it, what values and meanings we bestow on it, and how the soil might own us.

Aslıhan Demirtaş’s Kaide [Plinth] (2016) is a sculptural work made of rammed earth. “Plinth” is one of the several meanings of the word kaide in Turkish, which also means principle, foundation, and rule—words that have distinct relationships to soil. With Kaide, Demirtaş alludes to traditional growing beds still used at Istanbul’s Historical Yedikule Urban Vegetable Gardens (grown in earth modules of 1m x 1.5 and depth necessary is around 50 cm), and brings attention to how one senses and values soil. The work explores what soil is beyond its utilitarian materiality in cultivation and possession, and opens up discussions on ownership, inheritance, and cultural heritage.

Throughout the spring, collectorspace and Demirtaş invited a group of artists, collectors, thinkers, and farmers—with distinct collecting practices—to contribute in their own chosing. Through these contributions, Plinth explored topics on cultural heritage—both tangible and intangible—embedded in soil, and evaluated our relative efforts in preserving and activating those two complimentary but different forms.

Ali Taptık proposed a barter of food recipes with his photographs, thinking about lineage and displacement; Nardane Kuşçu placed a group of wild herbs next to Kaide, referring to the mediators of knowledge in nature; Ayşe Umur gifted us the book The Treasure Chests of Mnemosyne by artist Sarkis and art historian Uwe Fleckner, asking how soil could become a space of memory; Banu Cennetoğlu sent a discard, a muddy liquid that traveled from a stone cleaning sink—at a lithography atelier where a work of hers was produced—into a jar in our space; Leyla Pekin exhibited Hale Tenger’s Give Me Back My Innocence (2005) which she borrowed from Tansa Mermerci Ekşioğlu’s private collection, questioning the economies of trust and desire while juxtaposing the precious and fragile with Kaide’s common material and massive form; Tolga Tüzün composed a sound piece that abstracted the stratified qualities of the rammed-earth; Saruhan Doğan framed a deed document to highlight land ownership as the epitome of a discussion about private property and so-called absolute proof of ownership; Emrah Altınok hid a poem in the exhibition space, alluding to the relationship between earth and death; and Ali Cindoruk designed info-cards for each guest as well as a visual that abstracts and levels all contributions to Kaide.