Admonishing Smile: Esin Aykanat Avcı
Nature, life and death… Although these three concepts seem unrelated, the truth that Esin Aykanat Avcı, with whom we met at Gate 27, captured reaches a new conclusion in the unity of nature and humans. Together with the questions of how fragile the life of humanity in the process of self-discovery can be and can death be a new beginning, we invite you to explore the intertwining of nature, life and death, which is intellectual and scientific.
How did you become interested in the field of bio-art and how did you start working in this field?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: My aim has never been to produce work in a specific field or specifically in the field of bio-art. Art, for me, is a space for expression and creating experiences. I have always pursued the question of how to convey this expression and experience in the best possible way. Therefore, from the beginning, my goal has been to create a new experiential space where I can closely examine the nature we are a part of, while considering the developments around me, pushing my own boundaries and knowledge. And to share this through the best means of expression or visual tools. As a result, a period in which I started to move my work beyond the studio and began producing works by directly experiencing natural materials brought me to this point organically. Working with natural materials and contemplating their essence inevitably involves incorporating science into the work. At a point where I pondered the possibility of physically reconnecting with nature, encountering the potential to grow organs for humans from leaves and perform a heart transplant with a spinach actually materialized my thoughts. To create this project, I essentially took the step I had already taken from the studio to an outdoor space and moved it into a biology laboratory. Currently, I am producing my work in a position that combines these three environments.
Nature, life and death. For many, these themes can be found very interconnected. However, how do you evaluate this relationship? Can you tell us a little about that?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: I started out by thinking about human life on earth as a part of nature. I tried to research and observe the relationship of man with his environment during his life, where and how he positions himself in nature. However, the path I took with this thought led me to include death, which is a part of life, into the work. Death takes place in my work not as an end, a final destination, but as an intermediate phase as part of change and transformation. As soon as the leaves or plant parts separate from the stem, they are frozen between life and death by my intervention. These transparent organic structures that look like inanimate plastics or papers and still have vascular systems on them, in fact, always carry their life potential in another form if they are sterilized at some point in the future and transplanted onto them. Death is actually an intermediate phase, a waiting point, a preparatory phase for a new formation…
How did the idea of leaves transforming into a ‘home’ come about? What process did you follow?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: The idea of purifying leaves from their cells and developing human cells in them and using them in organ production for humans comes from a scientific research. By applying the methods specified in the article of this research, these leaves, which are free of the green chlorophyll structure that we refer to as this “house”, and only the cellulose transparent skin and vein structure remain, based on this research, I applied the methods specified in the article (“Crossing Kingdoms: Using decellularized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffolds”). I produce accordingly.
From the beginning, my goal has been to create a new experiential space where I can closely examine the nature we are a part of, while considering the developments around me, pushing my own boundaries and knowledge.
-Esin Aykanat Avcı
How did you come together with a bio-chemistry expert and develop your project while dealing with art?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: I started to work in the field of bio-art, when I was interested in a scientific research on producing organs from leaves for humans and I started to research whether I could carry out the decellularization process of leaves, which is a part of this research. Of course, I needed the support of scientists because I did not have enough equipment in this regard. At this stage, I was lucky because Ilgım Göktürk, an academician in the field of biochemistry at Hacettepe University, helped me with laboratory support in solving this process through the article “Crossing Kingdoms: Using decellularized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffolds”. With his direction and the techniques I learned from him, I started to produce decellularized leaves by experimenting on different leaves in my own workshop. While this process was going on, I moved from Ankara to Istanbul and my chance to access the laboratory was gone. Through Gate 27, I had the chance to conduct a second laboratory research at Sabancı University Biology laboratories with the support and guidance of Nur Mustafaoğlu and her team, and during this process, I had the opportunity to perform new experiments that I was curious about.
How did the idea of using plant leaves as a new body for man come about? What were the factors that inspired this project?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: This project is based on a published article (“Crossing kingdoms: Using decellularized plants as perfusable tissue engineering scaffolds”). The article mentions that leaf veins closely resemble veins in the human body. And it is said that if human tissue is transplanted into these leaves, which have been purified of their own cells, organs that the human body will not reject can be produced by making use of this feature. While human beings push the limits of technology for their own future and spend the world’s energy and material resources, the idea that the solution can come from a spinach leaf, from nature itself, got me very excited, and I can say that it was ironic that a solution that was so close to us was only being discovered this century. That’s why I was interested in applying this decellularization method and using these bodies as part of my work. While the limits of our body are being pushed by such researches in science; I think that our relationship with nature, life and death will gain a new dimension.
Do you plan to use different materials as well as plant leaves in your future work?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: At the moment, I include different plant parts that are pruned along with plant leaves and water in my works. It is very inspiring for me to work with natural materials from the very beginning of my art production and by focusing on the essence, potential and limitations of the material, to experiment with material in my own workshop by going beyond what was taught to me during my previous education, and to rediscover it from scratch. I can say that any material that I can gather around and that is open to exploration is a potential art production material for me.
Where does the inspiration for this interdisciplinary bridge you built between science and art come from?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: I didn’t do this on a planned basis. In this project, which I came across at a time when I was thinking only about the interaction between human and nature, and even the possibility of human being physically reunited with nature, and producing scenes that symbolize this, the possibility of a spinach living as a heart in a human body, as I have stated, embodied my thought. My thinking, which was at the center of the project, led me to seek help from scientists. In this way, I stepped into the field of bio-art and a bridge was automatically established between science and art in my production. All of these processes and experiences showed me that science and art are not separate fields, that both require creativity and to see and examine its surroundings from a different perspective, and that a laboratory is often no different from an art workshop. That’s why the laboratory environment, the methods and materials used there are as inspiring for me as the materials I collect from the open space or my own workshop environment.
Death is actually an intermediate phase, a waiting point, a preparatory phase for a new formation…
-Esin Aykanat Avcı
Among all these disciplines, is there an area that you personally feel closer to?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: When I produce my works, I start from the point of which material I will produce rather than in which discipline. If I believe that the idea I want to express can be conveyed better with which method, material or discipline, I find it interesting to push the boundaries of that field and my own limits in that field.
Is there a book or song that you kept with you while doing your work and that inspired you?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: My reflection on human-nature interaction basically started when I felt that there was a problem with my own relationship with nature. But while I couldn’t figure out exactly what this problem was, the Transcendentalist texts of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Hanry David Thoreau during my literary education made me realize that this problem is actually positioning myself outside of nature, seeing nature as a place to go and see, separate from myself. For this reason, all my artistic productions on the possibility of the physical reunion of man and nature are actually based on the articles and books of these two 19th century American writers. Afterwards, of course, I applied to many books on ecology and plants, but among them there is another book that I have never left with me since the beginning of this project; The Life of Plants by Emanuelle Coccia. I think that there are very impressive and inspiring sentences about leaves and the origin of plants in this book, and I always need to look back at these sentences that I have marked many times during my writings about my productions and works. Other than that, I listen to music from time to time while working, but mostly focusing on the sounds around me has always been more relaxing for me.
What was your favorite plant in your work?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: I love ivy leaves. They both give very good results and I love their shape. There are many different types, large and small. I am also impressed by the fact that they are almost ubiquitous, and they are very stubborn and vigorous plants. The way they are in nature, the leaves arranged in a certain symmetry on their spiral and aesthetic trunks, the nails they pull from their stems to cling to a surface, the fact that they cover every surface they cling to and declare themselves are very inspiring for me. Also, all the street grasses that grow spontaneously in every corner of the city, at the bottom of a wall, building, pavement, staircase or in a man-made green area, park or garden are very remarkable and inspiring for me.
Do you have any favorite artists? If so, can you share it with us?
Esin Aykanat Avcı: This is a difficult and often changing question for me, because it seems to me that it is impossible to give a complete and always valid list. But if I have to name a few artists who have continued to inspire me for many years; I can name Anna Mendieta, Andy Goldsworthy, Richard Long, Azuma Makoto and Nerry Oxman.
