A saying from my grandmother, 'to dry our clothes under the same sun,' resonates in me deeply.

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Culture is this flow of words, meanings, and emotions passed through generations. Simple acts, like

hanging laundry or cutting tomatoes, carry pieces of our individual culture, learned from our

mothers and grandmothers.The sun, shared by all, provides necessary light and warmth. Does this

saying ‘to dry our clothes under the same sun' question how close we are to each other despite the

distance, or how distant we are from each other despite being close?

Feeling at home yet not at home is a strange sensation, even in a beloved house. The familiar can

feel unfamiliar, and unfamiliar can feel familiar, it may seem like a hieroglyph. It's more like an

unexpected grief leading to a profound sense of loss. Leaving a place fills one with strange feelings.

We'll miss not just loved ones, but also the person we were at that moment, as we'll never be the

same again.

ASLI BOLAYIR
 

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Curators note:

We Dried Cloth Under the Same Sun

 

Aslı Bolayır

 

In various discussions of the diaspora experience across different sources, certain themes frequently emerge, such as the formation of a new community and a sense of solidarity, the longing for the homeland left behind, and the possibility of sharing the grief of separation. However, in situations where this sense of community and solidarity cannot flourish, and where the burden of longing and grief cannot be shared, the most fundamental and perhaps the most dominant emotions inherent in the diaspora experience become crystal clear.

 

In *We Dried Cloth Under the Same Sun*, Aslı Bolayır offers an insight that provokes thought on the different ways of coping with an unquenchable sense of orphanhood, loneliness, and estrangement—without ever leading to despair. In a place where everything and everyone is foreign, can the ability to reinvent everything familiar and to include the unfamiliar in new forms of relationships be considered a life skill?

 

This skill, which requires us to imagine differently and to translate our imagination into life in another way, undoubtedly makes the diaspora a unique testing ground. Aslı Bolayır's "homes" are placed at the center of this testing ground. Constantly experimenting with rebuilding, drawing, and understanding a home, Bolayır pursues a few very simple questions: How can we transform the concepts of home, family, and friendship in the midst of all this estrangement? How can we build a bridge between the home we left behind and the one we are trying to establish? How can we connect with our emotions that move between the places we have left and the places we have arrived at? How can we bring together the things that have been separated?

 

At the point where we become strangers not only to where we have arrived but also to the place from which we were separated, there is no longer a place to return to. In that case, the only thing that remains is movement and motion. But this movement should not imply an ordinary journey; it should signify a mobility where we manage to shed all the burdens and weights accumulated in this adventure.

 

(...)

 

We Dried Cloth Under the Same Sun* offers a hopeful salute to our chances of finding common ground in emotions and lightening our burdens in places where we can be utterly foreign to each other.

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Özlem Unsal

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