Homesickness (Sıla Hasreti) is the name of the installation I created with collaboration from a lot of other people, including
Deniz Defne Acerol (sculptures)
Hope Holtzman (tapestries)
26 students in the 4th-grade class of Jale Toprak, a teacher at Akyarlar Elementary school, whose students I have known since they were in the 1st grade,
and artists from Turkey (Istanbul, Balıkesir, Antalya, Bodrum), Spain, Iceland and the US, who sent original mail art that arrived via traditional post n time for the exhibit, which was held at the Şevket Sabancı Culture Center in Turgutreis-Bodrum from 18-28 November 2014. You can download the catalog here:
Sıla Hasreti Homesickness PPS Catalog
Anyone interested can also contact me for the audio file of students reading their poetry (in Turkish).
Below are some more pictures from the exhibit.
You can also view the mail art one by one by clicking here.
The sand is from Long Island, the Old Bay seasoning is from Baltimore, the tapestries are from Dereköy and the drawings from Akyarlar.
The lonely kitty is from Deniz in Istanbul.
The photographs and wine cup are from Avanos.
The tapestries are Hope’s from Dereköy
The drawings are of all the places I’ve lived and miss – from St. Louis…
to Aachen…
to Brooklyn.
Deborah Semel Demirtaş 
Leave a Reply