Our world is characterized by a dizzying and uncontrollable speed. We should agree that we are in the middle of a crisis. To imagine the future, we must embrace the present and use it to shape the future. Instead of settlement, we should consider nomadism, but “not only moving from one place to another”; the nomadism of the thoughts, feelings and values we believe in result in fragmented identities, which trigger loss of memory and rupture from common structures, and influence all the decisions that we take during our lives, as well as our attitude towards life. In this world full of uncertainties, in this process of destruction, reconstruction and in the cycle of transformations it entails, Bengü Karaduman moves forwards with the need of redefining the environment which surrounds her, her body and her soul. She processes the objects that she collected through her observations and transfers the intertemporal conscious and unconscious movements to her animations and her drawings, pursuing the shadow. Then she throws them towards us to see how we will react and she waits for the echo.

Facing our shadow is difficult. The shadow is defined by Ursula K. Le Guin as “the other side of our psyche, the dark brother of the conscious mind”. Even if it sometimes tries to show up, we do our best to avoid hearing and seeing it. And yet our shadow stays on alert to remind us of its presence. When our awareness surrenders the state of semi-consciousness called sleep, the shadow finds its way through the depth of the dreams under different identities. In her artistic production, Bengü Karaduman is chasing the “shadow”. She both takes account with her own shadow and seeks to reveal the other side of the events kept in our social memory, their deepest, dark, unnoticed side. She scrutinises the social and psychological unrest created by these events; she doesn’t let them be forgotten, neglected. Her works do not shout but they have a silent strength. In the narrative of her work, she starts by scrutinizing herself and communicates to us through different media.

Öykü Özsoy