Su Yollunu Bulur: water finds their way is a multimedia, site-specific installation contending with the grief of colonial displacement and encounter, and the communion and collectivity that might return us to ourselves, each other and the land. Working with carpets—an alternative gathering space to the colonial table, and symbol of communion and spiritual practice—Alize Zorlutuna weaves together the traditional and visionary. Su Yollunu Bulur emerges in relation to carpets in the Agnes Etherington Art Centre collection allegedly acquired by Etherington’s husband while stationed in Egypt during WWI. From these, Zorlutuna pulls motifs, exploding their scale and intersecting them with renderings of Kingston-area waterways and local flora and fauna. By combining these symbols used to describe the lands of their origins, Zorlutuna complicates the storytelling of these individual elements. Layered among each other, the motifs and shapes become portals into the sacred, time-traveling through ancient practice and enduring form. Through relocating and recontextualizing these motifs in relation to the lands where they now reside, and within the holy shape of the mihrab (the arced form within a prayer rug), we are asked to witness the trajectory of colonial acquisition that contributes to our present moment.
Accompanying the carpets are medicinal plants grown and harvested by Zorlutuna and collaborator SF Ho as well as roses collected from the Agnes Etherington Art Centre gardens. Reclaiming the rose from their designation as ornamental and likewise the opium poppy from criminal to medicinal, these healing plants lend their support for grief, and the revolutionary act of dreaming.