FATMA BUCAK: WHILE THE DUST QUICKLY FALLS | Kunsthaus Dresden - Germany: Solo presentation developed in collaboration with the Kunsthaus Dresden

Soil is the “living, breathing skin of the Earth.”* It supports, in some way, nearly all life on earth’s land surface and is therefore of critical importance for ecosystems and humanity. The immersive installation Numbing silence covers us like fine dust draws attention to soil desertification after high-intensity wildfires. While some fires can be beneficial for soil, high-intensity fires destroy soil’s nutrients, and it can take decades to regenerate scorched earth. Remarkably, the ash produced by fires is often full of nutrients and helps with soil restoration. For this work, the artist visited forests in Tunceli, a Kurdish-majority province in Eastern Anatolia after they were decimated by wildfires last summer. In the 1990s, Tunceli suffered environmental destruction as a result of violent conflict between the Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). While there, she gathered ashes and soil for this immersive installation reminiscent of a cutout slice of a mountain. It simultaneously activates the viewer’s senses of smell, sight, and sound, bringing a complex geography thousands of kilometres away to Dresden. Bucak also recorded the sound of the unproductive soil throughout the area, with microphones

sub- merged underground to pick up the sounds of emptiness that reverberate through barren earth. These recordings were then amplified and incorporated into a minimal composition developed with composer Bahar Royahee. Enveloping the entire space of the installation, the composition actualises the silence and lifelessness that permeates burned forests.

*William Bryant Logan