One Door One Hundred Trees, digital art show, Serife Akkan

Quick catch up with artist Serife Akkan about her work and its digital exposition.

What are you working on now?

I just completed launching my first digital solo art show “One Door One Hundred Trees”[1]  after receiving rave reviews for my painting running to the oasis[2]  a desertification themed painting I made for World Desertification Day on June 17  which I digitally exhibited as part of The Atelier Teymur Rzayev’s First Digital Climate Change Art Show published by Pinelo Art Gallery.[3]  With fast urbanization in Turkey, particularly in Istanbul, the parks, the school yards, the green areas of my childhood in the city gave way to enormous concrete buildings.

Compared to my childhood, children who live in the city don’t have places to play, to run, to witness the change in seasons as reflected in the trees anymore.  Istanbul used to have so much more green areas for children to play in, but not anymore.[4]  That is the theme I portrayed in “Running to the Oasis” and our group show contained paintings depicting  Climate Change related themes of:

·      Deforestation – a theme I further  explore in my solo art show “One Door One Hundred Trees” [5];
·      Desertification;
·      Biodiversity – a theme Fatma Kadir further explores in her solo art show “Bird Watching”[6];
·      Artic melting – a theme Semine Hazar further explores in her solo art show “Sea Watcher”[7];
·      Hurricane; and
·      Tsunami – a theme Selva Ozelli futher explores in her solo art show “Art in the Time of Corona.”[8]

Our group art show which is running  from May 30 to June 12 was a registered UN World Environment Day and World Oceans Day digital event  and  was published by the World’s first climate change museum The Jockey Club Museum for Climate Change-Hong Kong.[9]  It was curated by Selva Ozelli based on her series of articles on digital technology adoption, solar energy and tax policies in the jurisdictions with the greatest carbon emissions.  These articles were published by the Irish Tech News[10] as well as “The Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change – Hong Kong” in addition to over 100 publications around the world.

The theme of my solo digital art show “One Door One Hundred Trees” that was published by Pinelo Art Gallery has a similar theme to our group art show, so I launched it parallel to our group show, as did artists Fatma Kadir, Semine Hazar and Selva Ozelli.

One Door One Hundred Trees, digital art show, Serife Akkan

How was the last year, what worked well, what didn’t move as quickly as you would have liked?

During the past year I painted the twelve oil paintings for my “One Door One Hundred Trees” series for my solo digital art show which will run from June 5 to June 19 at Pinelo Art Gallery in Istanbul.  I painted these paintings from photographs I took from various trips I took.    I also took part in our Ateliers  group art show.

In the beginning of this year, at the atelier, we had initially planned to have a Climate Change themed group art show at Balat Culture Center in Istanbul.[11]   But then unexpectedly we  were hit with the COVID-19 related quarantine during March where we were instantly cut off from one another.   We kept in touch digitally.  In late May very close to our art show launch date, the Balat Culture Center informed us that we would have to postpone the physical art show due to COVID-19 related social distancing rules.[12]

Yet we had planned the dates of our group art show during the week of World Environment and Oceans days.  So, we had to switch to launching a digital art show with the help of Cem Ustuner the owner of Pinelo Art Gallery very quickly.   I launched my solo digital art show parallel to our group art show on World Environment day on June 5 since both art shows  have complimentary Climate Change related themes.

The good thing about a digital art show—which is likely going to be part of the art landscape going forward– is that our art work reached  a wider viewer audience globally.  This worked well as I wanted my paintings to bring attention to, to set alarm bells about the destruction humans are making to their environment.[13]  Particularly with the emergence of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic.

What do you hope to express in your “One Door One Hundred Trees” digital art exhibition?

The inspiration behind my art show “One Door One Hundred Trees”[14]  is to draw attention to the impact of rapid urbanization on our environment.  The Earth is undergoing a mass extinction that could see up to a million species disappear in the coming decades – and humans are contributing heavily to this by causing the planet to warm by around 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times.  During the 20th century, extinction rates were about 100 times higher than they would have been without humans significantly altering most of the planet’s surface.  Humanity’s ecological footprint is about 70 percent larger than the planet can sustain with the most widespread form of land-use change being the expansion of agriculture.   According to the IPBES report[15], over a third of the Earth’s land surface is now used for cropping or livestock, mainly at the expense of forests, wetlands and grasslands.

Other key land-use changes include logging, mining and urbanization.  Such changes are contributing to air, water and soil pollution that are contributing to the changes in ecological balance which is resulting in the extinction of species  that can be beneficial in eradicating pests and plagues.   One wonders whether this ecological imbalance caused by Climate Change contributed to the rapid spread of COVID-19 around the world.

In my “One Door One Hundred Trees” series I want to draw attention to man-made doors and the minimal presence of nature around them.  A door or doorway symbolizes the transition and passageway from one place to another, representing the opening to new possibilities, hope, opportunities, new beginnings  and transformation.  I would like the   12 doors in my art show which  represent  12 months of the year to spark an awareness about the damage we are doing the ecological balance and nature.

What are your plans for the future?

I am now making artwork for the portakalcicegi project which translates to orange blossom project.   This project is a partnership between the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV) and Port Art Gallery.[16]  As part of the project artists  donate their art work to be exhibited and sold at very reasonable prices to raise funds for the Turkish Education Foundation (TEV).  This year given the coronavirus pandemic this project is raising funds for orphaned children of healthcare professionals who lost their lives while saving lives related to the corona virus pandemic .   I am donating  three photos of my oil painting titled “Children of War”– a painting I made for the World Refugee Day on June 20.

I also began painting a new series based on photos I took in a recent overseas trip.   Details of which I am keeping under wraps for now.

Artwork by Serife Akkan @talenthouse https://t.co/jEv0LQAxBn

— SA (@Umutwit) June 5, 2020

How can people find out more about what you are working on?

TALENTHOUSE:  https://www.talenthouse.com/item/2326353/b2765c64
FACEBOOK:  SAkkan
INSTAGRAM:  @2akkans
TWITTER:  SA@Umutwit

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT2snjDDVgc
[2] https://cointelegraph.com/news/review-cointelegraph-inspired-climate-change-art-exhibition
[3] https://irishtechnews.ie/atelier-teymur-rzayev-climate-change-art-show-may-30th/
[4] https://www.norvergence.net/interviews/serife-akkan/
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT2snjDDVgc
[6] https://irishtechnews.ie/creating-art-in-a-covid-19-world-insights-with-digital-artist-fatma-kadir/
[7] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=252274439370698
[8] https://www.facebook.com/527889230574675/posts/3281134275250143/
[9] https://www.mocc.cuhk.edu.hk/en-gb/hub-categories/news-and-developments/item/2256-atelier-teymur-rzayev-s-first-digital-climate-change-art-show-pinelo-art-gallery-20200527
[10] https://irishtechnews.ie/why-tax-policy-help-solar-adoption-selva-ozelli/
[11] https://norvergence.net/upcoming-atelier-teymur-rzayev-climate-change-art-show/

[12] https://www.trvst.world/inspiration/kuresel-isinma-sergisi-climate-change-art-show/
[13] https://www.norvergence.net/interviews/serife-akkan/
[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT2snjDDVgc
[15] https://ipbes.net/global-assessment
[16] www.portart.org

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