Morning Run, 2019
Video performance
(video still)
“To live with the same enthusiasm while consuming the resources recklessly, isn’t that a paradox?
Is it life itself, the absurdity in the endless cycle of Sisyphos?
As Zeus is not around, then who is the one that cursed us?
If we start over every time, then how lonely can we be?
Didn’t we come this far all together – plant, fungi, animal, bacteria?
Is this life our own choice?
When would it change then?
Once our perceptions transcend our bodies and movements? Maybe.
The imagination of a new life has always been immense and blue.
Somewhat like Rumi says, ‘if your cup can’t take much water, why is the sea to blame?’
To enlarge our cup, the only way is to keep on running, seemingly:
within the green space of two square-meters falling to our share,
every morning, dead or alive,
with small steps at times, and big ones at others.”
Şafak Çatalbaş
Şafak Çatalbaş, Morning Run, 2019
Video performance / Single channel video with color and sound, 6’53’’, loop
(excerpt from the video)
Drone shooting: Abdullah Kırbaş
With a blue chroma-key suit covering my body, I went out for a morning run. My running field was limited to two square-meters, the average urban green space for each person living in Istanbul. Flying like birds of prey above my head, a drone was video-recording my run. Later, I added a chroma-key effect to the documentation video so that clouds pass by through the void of my body. A constant buzzing sound accompanies the footage.
“Intergalactic” exhibition, 2019, Anna Laudel Gallery, Istanbul. Photo by Kayhan Kaygusuz