The person
How I got to this
I spent five years taking corrosion off other people's objects before I started putting it onto my own.
The bench
Five years in an objects lab, on things that came out of the ground with their record already written on them. I learned that the surface is the document, and that taking it off is a decision nobody can undo for you. I also learned to like the bits everyone else wanted removed.
The switch
I started scanning the corrosion I was about to destroy, at first only to keep it. Then I built an object underneath one of those scans to see whether the surface would hold on something that had never existed. It held, and I stopped cleaning things for a living.
The file
Now the object comes first and the ageing is the work. It runs in passes I can switch off, which means I can show you the thing new and the thing found, and defend every step between them. Prints, occasionally a bronze, and one long argument about what evidence is.
Trained at the Istanbul Museum of Applied Arts, objects lab
The bench
Things that went home again
Four of the objects I worked on in the lab. They are the reason I know what corrosion does before I ask a file to do it.
Bronze ewer, spouted
2013Applied Arts, store 4
Chloride removal, wax barrier, one lost handle rivet replaced
Iron lock plate
2014Private loan
Mechanical scale reduction, tannate conversion, no infill
Silver bowl, rim dented
2016Applied Arts, gallery 2
Tarnish reduction, rim supported and deliberately left dented
Copper finial
2017Municipal salvage
Documented, stabilized, not cleaned at all
Every object here belongs to somebody else and is shown with permission. None of them is for sale and none of them is mine.
Record
Shows, prizes and where the work sits
Solo exhibitions
- 2026 Never Buried Galata Modern, Istanbul
- 2024 Four Ages of One Object Depo Karakoy, Istanbul
- 2022 Absent Bolt Kule Gallery, Ankara
Group exhibitions
- 2025 Objects Without Provenance Galata Modern, Istanbul
- 2025 Made, Not Found Fabra i Coats, Barcelona
- 2023 The Second Surface Kunsthalle Zwolle
- 2021 Digital Antiquity Salt Beyoglu, Istanbul
Awards & prizes
- 2025 Estufa Prize for Digital Sculpture Lisbon
- 2023 Kucuk Foundation Award, shortlist Istanbul
Residencies
- 2024 Metals residency, six weeks Villa Kastelli, Rhodes
Collections
- 2025 Two works Museum of Applied Arts, Istanbul
- 2024 Weights, a graded set Marchetti Collection, Milan
Press
Where it has been written about
Apollo
The conservator who grows rust
Issue 742, March 2026 Words by Hanne Vos
Revista Fio
Twelve objects that never happened
No. 19, Autumn 2025 Interview, eight pages
Argos
On the ethics of an invented patina
Volume 12, 2025 Essay by Ivo Brandes
Kavram
Karakoy, third floor
Winter 2024 Studio visit, photographs by Efe Ozan