Lilies blooming in the swamps or new sprouts

In the damp and dark depths of the marshes, a life cycle begins. This poetic life, imagined within the blues, raises the critical question: is the circularity within these visions of life permanent? The Porsuk Stream, flowing through the heart of Eskişehir, once a clear water body, has transformed over time into a peculiar appearance, resembling marshes, as its waters became tainted by the waste of surrounding factories, flowing in colorful hues and gradually turning murky, gray, and entwined with shades of green. This, in turn, disrupts the delicate balance of the ecosystem and the aquatic life within it. Habitats that were once full of life gradually turn into undefined, meaningless, waterless fields of death. However, nature is always in pursuit of rebirth; from within chaos, new lives inevitably sprout.

In Irem Apak's The Stream Whispers Run exhibition, the corruption of ecosystems affects not only physical spaces but also our spiritual realms over time, poisoning them. Through works in video, sculpture, installation, glass, and canvas—spanning both plastic and digital disciplines—Apak revives an artificial fauna within the framework of organic and inorganic existences. This fauna embodies a fragile living space, bearing the traces of sharp destruction while also carrying the potential for rebirth. Perhaps, after things come to an end, the transition to a new habitat is full of challenges and struggles. When an aquatic creature steps out of the safe environment of the marsh and into a new world, it reconfigures the power of the habitat and the importance of adaptation to new worlds, guided by its own intuition.

Climatic and ecological variables trigger the metamorphoses and genetic changes of living beings. This process is a reflection of nature's creative and destructive power within contrasts and transcendence. New species emerge as a result of these changes, each trying to find the key to order within chaos. From the dark waters of the marsh, new life cycles rise—symbolizing the search for a new and unknown home. This rebirth also reflects the complexity and resilience of life; moreover, every crisis is the herald of a new beginning. Amidst all these disrupted ecological cycles, new faunas reveal the fragility of life and its strength to never give up.

Ultimately, Irem Apak’s The Stream Whispers Run exhibition presents itself as the manifestation of ecological change, the formation of new species in the unknown cycle, and the contrasts between things that end and begin, appearing as an impression of order within chaos. In the intertwined possibilities of cacophony and order, all illusions appear before us, like a water lily on the surface of a marsh. The deep and invisible waters, the small fish larva on its way to a new habitat, or the tiny sprout struggling for its’ life.

Exhibition text and curatorial consultancy: Melike Bayık