Ayşegül Kaycı
MEMORY OF THE WALLS
“Know how you can tell an entity? Look at what they read, look at what they watch, and look at what hangs on their walls and is in their drawers, [how they talk, how they listen]. You don’t have to be a psychic. All you have to do is look, and that will tell you everything about where their soul is…”
Ramtha
I am right in front of the photograph my dad had carefully pulled out from the depths of his old, black wallet years ago. A childhood photo of me and my sister standing next to each other, a photo he only allowed us to look at, and put back in his wallet without letting us touch it. It’s on the wall of my house. My father’s naiveté reflected in his graceful and careful demeanor amazes me and makes me admire him, as much as I admire the photo, even today. ‘1990, Ayşegül and Songül’, our names and the date carefully written on the back, puts this photo in a special place in my mind. Years later, with this photo and the information on the back, those little children learned that they used to be children once.
Little details like that about my life, found objects and the photographs I produce create a space of experience where I can put one thing next to another and then change their order as I please. This situation triggers my interest in how other people organize their world and common spaces in their houses, their personal and cultural bonds, and aesthetic surroundings. I want to know what type of objects or photographs they consider special, and the steps they go through before putting them on their walls. The memory and narrative of geography, a place or a person, and what they demonstrate to others have always inspired me.
As part of ‘Değiş Tokuş’, the opportunity arose to conduct a project in Mardin Midyat. I have always been drawn to it for its multicultural ethnic composition; it’s always been a place where I wanted to see its narrow streets and visit the mysterious interiors of buildings in its historical villages. So, I lended my eyes to my project partner İmran, to look at how people from different ethnicities and socio-economic classes living at the center or villages of Midyat organize their walls at home or at work.
Typologically, within the unique architectural diversity of Midyat, I focused on the objects, photographs, paintings and other objects they valued and how they put them on display for others. Some display things they considered important within their personal history, and others prefer not to give a hint with their bare walls. On some walls, there is one object that stands out; on others, various different objects come together demonstrating their aesthetic choice.
Generally speaking, I find the walls of houses and offices located in the center of Midyat to be more desolate. They are somewhat unfortunate, without a place, an identity, or a geography to belong to, already lost all their connection. Although some of the historical buildings continue to exist, their walls are left empty and to their own fate. Traces of the past are almost invisible. On the contrary, as you move away from the city center, closer to the surrounding villages, the walls of private spaces we call home turn into spaces for an ‘exhibition’ - in certain places it happens naturally or randomly, in others the spaces are consciously organized. They resemble minimal museums with a character to their own.
I hope that ‘Memory of the Walls’ will make you question -just like it has made me question- notions of geography, place, individual memory, collective memory and sharing them with others.
PROJECT TEAM: AYŞEGÜL KAYCI (İZMİR) & İMRAN ATASAL (MARDİN)

























