The journey down the current of all those who were adrift (2022)

A geodesic dome: Ø 500 cm x H296 cm, powder-coated steel tube, canvas with PVC membrane. Carved Bursa Uludağ Black marble Ø 300 cm, soil, video wall 218 x 124 cm, single channel (1920x1080) HD video, sound, lights. Cinematography Engin Aygun.

‘The journey down the current of all those who were adrift’ is a large-scale spatial and multifaceted installation that reflects on the relatively intact yet out-of-sight and obscured ancient subterranean canal and water-bearing cistern structures sprawling under historic Istanbul. The project reflects on systems of exchange, liquidity, transparency, and endurance that are embodied by these interconnected conduits and vital neural networks that lie under Hagia Sophia and the Topkapı Palace among other historical sites. Video footage displayed flat on screens sunken in the ground represents a journey in this dark, sunken, and frozen-in-time world inaccessible to the millions crisscrossing the roads, palaces, and places of worship above. These are arterial structures that sprawl for miles under our feet, that have acted as life-saving delivery routes and hideaways for millennia. The installation which resembles an excavation site is mounted within a large geodesic dome structure. On the floor, we see freshly unearthed soil that surrounds an emerging surface of the moon carved in stone. Embedded in the middle of this lunarscape, there is a monitor which shows the enthralling footage from under the ground in Istanbul.

The conceptual framework of ‘The journey down the current of all those who were adrift’ is defined by the deployment of signifiers from historical times and celestial forms such as the lunar surface. Çavuşoğlu threads through the ability of historical remnants to relay timeless concepts and tell universal and abstract stories that still resonate today. Çavuşoğlu’s complex and layered practice with its pattern of literary and scientific references unfolds a series of moral parables that have a notional relevance to contemporary art and the production of culture. His works blur the lines between the natural and man-made to generate eternal moral tales and universal commentaries on time, and temporality. Çavuşoğlu unearths the surrounding reality through multifaceted narratives, and each facet is revealed to us one at a time. This is particularly evident in another aspect of his practice where he works with anamorphic drawings emphasising the relationship between the shadows and the way the objects are projected: in time and space. The shadows in this case are the invisible ‘blood’ vessels that connect under the ground or act as invisible highways between places and time. Across his repertoire, there is a fascination with the idea of perspective and seeing history through an anamorphic lens. Yet the work is not just about revealing the past like in an archaeological excavation, or x-Rayed objects and surfaces, but also projecting these ideas into the future. Therefore, the representation of the lunar surface acts as a metaphor andan anchor. The work epitomises a utopian Jules Vernean “journey into the interior of the earth” idea, where the earth has been replaced by the surface of the moon. Therefore, extending the vantage point to the portion of the lunar surface acts as an aperture through which we see under the surface of the earth.