Ayşe Erkmen, whose practice and in particular, her site-specific works have been etched in memory, takes the social and physical environment that she is in as a starting point and by repositioning the existing structure in her particular style, impels viewers to think about space. Her works, which make spaces experienceable, do not exhibit a concern with forming a formal language. The artist invites viewers to engage deeply in dialogue with the physical, visual, social, and psychological dimensions of environments such as museum galleries, gallery windows, exhibition spaces, parks, rivers, and squares. The contemporaneity of Ayşe Erkmen’s works is derived from her pointing to the already-existing in different forms. While she makes “sculptural” propositions in her temporary interventions, taking the space as is, in exhibition spaces, she adds on as few “foreign” elements as possible. By reconfiguring the objects and relationships in spaces that we encounter daily or at times by getting rid of them, disrupting them, she interweaves art and life, forming singular areas. The artist thus makes visible models of socializing that open up reality; the works are complete only when viewers are present.
