The works of Günnur Özsoy, shaped by the relational aesthetics and processes of contemporary art today, are the results of her passionate, laborious practice in her studio at the Maslak Atatürk Industrial Zone. In this workshop, she combines materials such as steel, brass, marble, and polyester—materials familiar to the industrial site and, as she herself calls them, "reliable materials"—with design, communicative aesthetics, and technological knowledge in her creations. Her white and colorful abstract sculptures, which challenge the viewer’s perception of sculpture, exist not only in exhibitions but also in public spaces in Istanbul and Izmir. With their soft, nature-harmonious forms, these predominantly white polyester sculptures awaken the inner perception and sensitivity that abstract expressionism envisioned, expanding the general public’s understanding of sculpture. Since Rodin, the language of abstract sculpture has endured from the mid-19th century to today. For audiences accustomed to monuments and figurative imagery, Özsoy’s works, without the need for explanation, open a space for reflective personal interpretation. In this way, they enrich both the grand narratives of art and its contemporary relevance. Her works stand as examples of this ongoing development today.
Exhibited in Küçük Han, one of Ayvalık’s most significant cultural and artistic institutions, Özsoy’s works offer viewers another grand narrative.
This summer, Özsoy lived for a time on Cunda Island—today known for its touristic appeal but still bearing the hidden truths of its historical past. She introduces us to a form of performance art, one of the essential practices of artistic production, where the audience directly encounters the artist’s active and immediate experiences. The performance begins with the discovery of the structural memory of the island’s architectural reality. Wandering through its silent, deserted corners, she comes across the chance presence of stone ruins. While Ayvalık draws mass attention with its surviving architecture that reflects the political, economic, cultural, and social structures of the recent past, the abandoned ruins continue to exist simultaneously as examples of this reality. Following these traces, Özsoy embarks on a journey reminiscent of Cavafy’s Ithaka:
"As you set out for Ithaka,
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery." (1)
Her work first brings these ruins into focus, visualizing them through photographs taken in the island’s remote corners.
At first glance, these ruins—the very proof of the island’s historical memory—appear as objects of nostalgia or tourist attraction. But when one moves beyond this superficial perspective toward their true meaning—something not at all easy for a consumer society enslaved to capitalism—a deeper passage opens, filled with historical, political, and economic knowledge. Özsoy explores the reality that the abandonment these buildings represent is tied to the grand narratives of the 20th century: war, migration, exile. She invites reflection on the experiences of individuals, families, societies, and cultures within this history. From this broader social structure, she focuses on the smallest member of the lowest class sustaining capitalism: the worker. Yet even within this, she makes a specific choice—selecting the woman worker, symbolized by the simplest object of all: the apron.
The performance is completed when these aprons—silent markers of small, personal narratives—are hung one by one upon the ruins, which themselves stand as silent markers of the grand narrative. Referencing the social-support practice of Askıda Ekmek ("bread on the hook")—where people buy bread for those in need—this performance is presented as an act of deconstructing the grand narrative.
In his book The Mediterranean World, Braudel describes Mediterranean islands as secluded worlds:
"Small or large, in every shape and size, these islands remain consistent human environments, subject to similar constraints that both hold them back and propel them forward far beyond the general history of the sea. That history, often crudely, has divided them between the two poles of decay and renewal." (2)
Cunda Island embodies this very tension: caught between decay and renewal, between the haunting weight of its abandoned historical past and the extremes created by the so-called novelties imposed by neo-capitalism. With her photographs of aprons (workers serving the desires of consumerist novelty) hung upon ruins (symbols of decay), Özsoy highlights the persistence of this contradiction.