Childhood memories become exhibition at Baksı Museum

BAYBURT – Anadolu Agency

The Baksı Museum, established in the Bayraktar village of the northeastern province of Bayburt and the recipient of the 2014 European Council Museum Award, will host an extraordinary personal exhibition in 2017 from its founder, Professor Hüsamettin Koçan. 

Koçan said the museum, which has exhibited different concepts every season since its opening, would host an international exhibition he created with an inspiration from his homeland. 

He said that among the most important events slated to take place in 2017 would be his personal exhibition, which he initially prepared to coincide with his 70th birthday but had to postpone until his 71st birthday. He said the exhibition would be carried to an international level by Swiss curator Barbara Pollo. 

Koçan said his forthcoming exhibition would reinterpret through contemporary art his reminisces about the region where he spent his childhood. 

“Maybe it’s the first time an artist is opening his own personal exhibition at a museum which he established himself,” he said. 

 “In my childhood, the floor furnaces [tandır] were used to cook dishes and were used as a heater placed over a kilim [rug] in winter. We tried to do something new to depict it. I completely created the exhibition by looking at the four-leg structure of this floor furnace and the kilims covering it. This is what a 70-year-old remembers about his childhood life in the village. Because there is a long life spent here, this child had various dreams, listened to many tales and established relations,” he said.

A migration story 

Koçan said another goal of the exhibition was to draw attention to the migrations that began in the 1960s in the region. 

“Actually, the main reason for these migrations was because people were in search of better economic conditions. I tried to create a tower on the base of floor tables that people used in the past. This tower symbolizes people’s departure. I made a hole in the center of the tower. I tried to show visitors that the table was waiting to be filled by people,” Koçan said.
 
He said the exhibition features his own fields of interest, his memories and the cross sections of his life by bringing together the concepts of tradition and future. 

He additionally said another focus of the exhibition were collars.  

“A collar is an extraordinary form designed by ironsmiths used to protect dogs that protect us from wild animals. When we look closely at this form, we see the intricate and creative work done by the ironsmiths. We centuplicated it and made it a big artwork,” he said.  

Koçan said he also featured roots in the exhibition and made installations of them. “This exhibition actually aims to bring together lots of objects mapped in my mind to form a new text. The diversity, colorfulness and serenity here are at the root of the depth of life,” he added.  

Story of Sona

Koçan said in another part of the exhibition, visitors may see the story of a girl named Sona, who was given up for adoption in the village. 

“I made a series on Sona’s life. This is also a memory from my childhood when I was 8 or 10. I used hand motifs in the exhibition. The hand is a very important and meaningful organ to me. It motivates a sense beyond seeing; we touch something we like because seeing it is not enough. This is why I wanted to express the multi-functionality of the hand,” the professor said.