Fatma Belkis

Fatma Belkis was born in Antalya in 1985. She now lives and works nomadically. She is interested in narratives of individuals going through a transformation, specifically the ones who prefer not to do this alone. She works with text, video, and printed matter. While problematizing structures built on friendship and comradery, she focuses on contracts and the breaches of these contracts regarding these structures. She aims to weave a web tying notions like loss, grief, negotiation, conflict, digestion, disappointment, and failure.

Her Project at SVA

Using the Turkish word for cow – inek – as a case study, “How to Deal With Growing Up & Forgetting Things” explores the formation of an enemy, a nemesis, or a bully (depending on the context) through the embodiment of violence in language. The slang meaning of inek as a hard-working student emerged during the 1930s by university students organizing a politically critical spring festival.

A situation that suggests hospitality is shared by three parties; the host, the guest, and the witness. A state of absolute hospitality, in which the host trusts the guest without any question or boundaries is quite unlikely, let alone non-conflictual even if possible. If at one point in the timeline, the host and the guest would fail to accommodate each other with irreversible consequences, then would the context change from a “visit” to another? Would the two parties try to end each other once and for all?