Merdiven Art Space
presents the artist book Bridging the Distance by Fırat Engin, while simultaneously hosting the eponymous exhibition between 4–30 November 2023.
Edited and authored by Derya Yücel, with design by Vahit Tuna, Bridging the Distance: Fırat Engin offers a comprehensive reflection on the intersections between art and life, and on the artist’s creative process and evolving practice. Structured around the dynamics of recollection, the book explores Engin’s production through shifting contexts, subjects, and materials—suggesting a mode of reading that echoes acts of remembering and contemplation.
Rather than following a linear chronology, the publication seeks to map a relational memory between Engin’s works. It does so through thematic clusters such as memory and identity, social justice and urgencies, political economy, and global incursions—offering an interpretive framework grounded in association and resonance.
Accompanying the publication, the exhibition Bridging the Distance presents a selection of Engin’s works from the past two decades, many of which are held in private and institutional collections. Featured works include Purification (2011), In Memory of Gregor Samsa (2010), Motherland (2017), Ghosts of the Millennium (2021), and 2 onions, 1 bread, 1 fake Hermès (2021), among others—each conceived with different materials and techniques.
Fırat Engin’s artistic approach is shaped by the sociopolitical dimensions of the subjects he explores, informing both his choice of material and medium. Expanding the expressive possibilities of interdisciplinary narration, the artist primarily works across sculpture, installation, video, and neon. Through a conceptual intersection of form and content, Engin addresses themes such as popular culture, daily life, consumption, and global-national political issues.
Bridging the Distance was on view at Merdiven Art Space from 4 to 30 November 2023.
