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‘Progress’, or the advancement of human history, encompasses a number of ruinous and destructive acts. Processes of construction and wreckage are closely linked. The ideologies, instruments and technologies of human advancement are intertwined with the reality of natural resource exhaustion, ecological collapse, war, displacement and the precariousness of financial and environmental systems. The works of Alper Aydın respond to human interactions with nature – either through subtle interventions in natural settings or more direct engagements with human acts of construction and urban development. His temporary interventions into environmental sites point out the connections between human building and ecological collapse and resource depletion. For a past project, he used water-based paint to inscribe upon stones on the coast of the black sea their exact weight: natural resource reduced to rational system, and abstraction standing for exploitation and commodification.

For the Istanbul Biennial, Aydın’s work D8M (2017), which includes the blade of a bulldozer, has been placed inside Istanbul Modern. This tool for razing and displacing natural terrain is seen pushing a thicket of real trees that were cut to make way for a new airport north of Istanbul, as part of a construction project that is also displacing homes. An emblem of the eradication that comes with construction, the piece of equipment appears to roar and flex itself. Alienated from their ‘natural’ settings, the blade and trees foreground the brutal erasure of nature done in the name of expansion, efficiency and mobility. The work animates and performs our destructiveness, disavowal and forgetfulness of our natural habitats.

Details

  • Title: D8M D8M
  • Creator: Alper Aydin
  • Date Created: 2017
  • Location: Istanbul Modern Art Museum
  • Type: Installation
  • Medium: Bulldozer, trees

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