Aylin Şancı

This moving lexicon reflects on the relationship between belonging and displacement, presence and absence, weight and movement. It traces the tension between lived geographies and the boundaries imposed upon them.

The place into which one is born carries a form of geographical luck that shapes the path of a life. It influences the opportunities one encounters, the horizons one can imagine, the borders one may cross, and the political conflicts to which one is exposed.

By translating the consequences of this luck into language, its underlying grammar and syntax surface. Meaning emerges, dissolves, and shifts, depending on the space between words and the relations they hold to one another while continuing to orbit on the constructs imposed upon geography and people.

This work is inspired by Mardin, a city that exists at the threshold of multiple cultures, languages, and political regimes. Situated at the crossroads of territories, its landscape reveals how borders are drawn, shifted, and imposed upon lived geographies. Within this context, the work considers how place shapes meaning, and how structures governing movement, identity, and access become embedded in language and being.