SANS TRANSLATION / GALERI BARAZ 2019

Gül Kozacıoğlu's 'Tercümesiz / Sans Translation' is an installation series of light, poetry and movement, consisting of neon and soundpieces. The neon pieces are words and phrases, from colloquial Turkish, each chosen for the peculiarity of their meanings, 'highlighted' from conversations. Memories of these conversations are recounted through the soundpieces accompanying the neons. Some of these phrases and words are reflections of a specific cultural stance, rooted in Eastern mysticism, whilst others are simply used in different terms than their literal meanings. These phrases take upon different, even contradictory meanings through the vocal tonality with which they are expressed. At times sarcastic, or even humorous, without translation, travelling into other languages. A play with languages, taking a phrase or word from one language to another is inherent in the title "sans translation", an amalgamation of English and French. This free usage of languages referred to as ''code-switching'' in linguistics is a process common to multilingual geographies such as Turkey, where French and English still exhibit a major presence in academic discourse, due to the impracticality of translation of theoretical texts, and where the presence of ethnic minority communities; such as the Armenian, Greek, Levantine and Sephardic communities, creates the practice and usage of another, contemporary colloquial language, sampling between languages according to context. The attention upon these usages serves also to pinpoint to archaeology of another paradigm of existence, embedded in Turkish mass culture, which is rising to the forefront as chaos and incongruity in current socio-economic and political life is bringing about dismissal of personal responsibility for the outcome of events and reversion to a fatalistic, pre-renaissance stance.