Aslı Çavuşoğlu: I’m Aslı Çavuşoğlu. I’m an artist based in Istanbul. These works are from my series titled Red / Red.
I was very much interested in the material and historical aspects of pigments. In the drawings, you see two different reds being used. The Armenian red is fading. This red color is extracted from an insect that lives with a plant in this border between Turkey and Armenia and it’s very important in Armenian culture. And the Turkish red is super bright and very dominant.
After the genocide in 1915, about 1 million people were killed—1 million Armenians. And together with the Armenian people of the region, the knowledge of making this color disappears. I found out that there was one professor still producing this pigment. I met him and he agreed to give me 12 grams of the ink.
I used miniature painting styles that are made traditionally with this Armenian red color. All the paintings, they have a double—one symbolizing the Turkish side and the other Armenian side. And the Turkish red is slowly erasing the other red.
I wanted to ask the question differently by making this work. Instead of asking, what happened to the Armenians, what happened to this color? After all these wars and after all these atrocities, it’s not only the people, the bodies die, it’s also their knowledge and the beauties that they are able to give the world, they disappear.
I hope there will be openness that will provoke in you rather than taking sides, whether being pro-Armenian or pro-Turkish. But rather meeting on a bridge because I believe that's the only way that would bring peace in this region.