ichnoumi (ichnoumi ocean of ‘I’ ), 2026, 21×14.8cm, mixed media
photo credit Zeynop Ekim
Easy and Easy, 2026, Reading-Performance, 30 minutes
My language is an odd shape and inaccurate outside my mother tongue. I stumble all the time, failing to pronounce and spell words. If one is not a form of holometabolism, a body cannot transform into a native speaker. I speak English as my second language; I am like a tennis player playing tennis with a ping-pong racket. I speak German as my third language, POV: a flute player who plays music by a drainpipe. Language learning is repetitive, time-consuming, and painful. Especially speaking and writing, nervousness grows for correctness, and overdoing practices piled up in my mind.
In my reading performance titled Easy and Easy, I introduce several short texts about language learning and its bittersweet. Vocabulary is regulated, but acquiring knowledge to explain about oneself is a social need for belonging outside a mother tongue. How is an artist as a language learner gaining the power of creation? If all things are Übung (practice) in both inside a language school and its outside, when comes the real thing? Period.
Seaweed in landscape, 2025, water color and pencil, 21 x 14.8cm
Examined seaweed, 2025, watercolor and pencil, 21 x 14.8 cm
Me Speak, 2025, ballppoint pen and water color on paper, 20.8 x 14.6 cm
Singing Like a Song, 2025, textile collage with hand stitching embroidery on self dyed fabric, 22x16cm
Seaweed Kissed a Rumor, 2024, Pottery
Traffic jam, 2025, hand stitching emboridery on fabric, 20 x 21 cm
Photo credit: Nele Hazod
spiku raiku a neitibu (Speak Like A Native), 2024, textile collage with hand sitiching embroidery on fabric, 49x31cm
I had an idea for my textile collage with hand-stitched embroidery work titled spiku raiku a neitibu (Speak Like A Native), 2024, 49x31cm, from my life experience. When I speak English or German which are my second and third languages, I am misunderstood people what I say, because of my pronunciation. My accent does not sound like a native speaker. I practiced my tongue to pronounce these two languages correctly. I wanted to be a native speaker. But one day, somehow, I stopped disciplining my tongue. Instead, I imagined that my tongue would become seaweed. My seaweed-tongue separates a few as many serpents’ tongues aggregate. It moves freely, sings, and speaks any language, not just human language. I communicate with animals, plants, and stars. I depicted such an imaginary scene in spiku raiku a neitibu (Speak Like A Native). How does language metamorphose when I struggle to make myself understood in a life outside of my mother tongue? The title of the work; spiku raiku a neitibu is allocated alphabets the English saying “Speak Like A Native.” is allocated to the alphabet, phonetically, into my pronunciation.