Maya Kil in Conversation with Artist Merve Mepa

Merve Mepa is an artist from Turkey who explores the interactions between material forms and social discourse in fields such as handicraft production practices, drawing, printmaking, internet networks, video and experimental electronics. She focuses on the historical evolution of tradition, labour, cultural sciences, and modes of production of technologies and their methods. Merve kindly shares her cultural and academic knowledge with the MADE IN BED in this exclusive.

Merve Mepa in her studio. Photo courtesy: Zeynep Ozkanca

Maya Kil: I would like to start our conversation with a discussion of your background and education as your field of expertise is very broad. What did you study?

Merve Mepa: As my bachelor’s degree, I did mathematics. After that, I have completed my fine arts education in the painting department. Then I followed with an MA and PhD. My arts education was very traditional which is why for many years I did just drawing and printing sticking to traditional mediums. That was before… let me say before things started to change.

MK: Do you remember the initial idea that led you to combine your professions?

 MM: This idea always existed, since the concept and aesthetics of traditional arts lie in geometry, form, and proportion. But formally it never attracted me, so I decided to dig a little deeper into art history. That is when I started my MA degree. This gave me a chance to understand deeper contexts about arts and new technology as well as simulation philosophy. During the pandemic, I started my PhD and that was when things started to change for me since I had a lot of time to do good research. At that time I also took a class in carpet design. This was when I started seeing a connection between crafts and math, science, and how they are all intertwined. At that moment it all started. I started seeing similarities and opportunities that I could develop. So I guess I could say everything started with carpets.

Merve Mepa, Notes on Lace, 2022. Photo Courtesy: Merve Mepa.

MK: Do you participate in education now?

MM: I do. I teach experimental printing and have been doing it for the last two years. But last year I gave it up for my PhD. At the moment I am a researcher in a private university. Talking about the future, I am not sure if I would like to continue as after my residency at the Delfina Foundation I would like to focus on my artistic practice so this is what I am doing this semester.

MK: What is your PhD about, if you do not mind me asking?

MM: Of course, I do not mind. It is published in Turkish. It is about artistic methodology, ethnomathematics and gender politics. It is a huge topic actually. To explain what is ethnomathematics; it is about cultural math that we use in our daily lives and that is connected to handicraft practices like weaving, knitting, and knotting or cooking etc. There is a system there and if something is systematic it has its own math in it. These practices are mostly associated with women, but also about marginalization of local communities. That is also where the gender politics comes in.

 MK: You grew up in Istanbul, Turkey. Did the culture of your native country affect your art practice in any way?

MM: First of all, the geography you were born and raised in influences your choices. Turkey is a multicultural geography with a deep-rooted history, where Western and Eastern cultures are synthesised. This brings with it an archaeological and anthropological richness but also affects social and political structures. This situation determines the subjects of artists from Turkey. Therefore, this diversity is also reflected in our artistic production. Social life here still maintains strong ties with the locals and traditions. Issues such as social memory and identity politics are frequently and mostly discussed and addressed here by the artists. In fact, persistence of local forms of knowledge and gender issues have been very influential in my artistic practice. Because traditional manual labour has been practiced in this geography for centuries as a means of recording and memory, especially by women. Eastern countries are inherently matriarchal. And these forms of knowledge, which are marginalised in many societies, become even more meaningful today. Because ethnic or local forms of knowledge actually bring with them multiplicities. In today's polorised world, where centralised forms of knowledge due to capitalist systems have become uniform and draw sharp boundaries, I think it is important to use non-edged forms of knowledge together with contemporary ones. This may prevent the solidification of the arts and sciences.

MK:Your practice combines traditional crafts, such as weaving and printmaking with new technology, such as coding. Would you say you see coding as a form of craft?

MM: As a form of craft, yes, but also as something political. Both coding and craft-making most certainly involves the collection and synthesis of information and methodology. At the same time, they are systematic in themselves, based on experience and empiricism as well as transmission.Both practices diversify due to the different materials and tools used within them. Their most important similarities, in my opinion, are that they are both problem-solving, functional, and even aesthetic. Just like math. If you see a formula for example you want to see aesthetics in it. And the same with craft. As human beings we tend to look for form and beauty behind it. They are all in a way languages, converters. They are just different mediums that work for the same reasons, for solving problems. Sometimes they are even taken out of their purpose or general use, enabling some alternative narratives. This brings about the understanding of interdisciplinarity that we always talk about in the arts. It directs the artist to play with the material and method, to move beyond concepts, to stretch and explore the boundaries more.

Merve Mepa, Textdraft, 2023. Photo Courtesy: Merve Mepa.

Merve Mepa, AnonymousText.tie, 2023). Photo Courtesy: Merve Mepa.

MK:Some of your artworks like TextDraft and AnonymousText.tie refer to gender politics and feminism. In your opinion, what is the role of art in the political discourse?

 MM: Oh, another political question?

 MK: I noticed it as a recurring pattern across your work.

 MM: Exactly. You know what is the problem with our generation? When I say “I am coding” or “I do new media” we just see the general aesthetics of big screens and floating images. But coding is actually a communication system. It is something like a network. Coming back to TextDraft and AnonymousText.tie, both works actually complement each other. And both of them work on the practice of weaving and its relationship with discourse and narratives. Before today's art, perhaps it is necessary to look at what arts, crafts and technologies have done so far. Because these fields are categorised by compressing them into certain definitions. In fact, they are not independent from daily life and social life. Especially in the old times, we see that these distinctions were not made very clearly. Especially the fact that weaving is a means of recording, memory and communication is a proof of how strong its ties with social discourse are. We see that such manual labour practices are generally associated with women, and of course this is not a coincidence. Especially women have been pioneers in the transmission of memory for centuries. We can think of these women, who found different ways of establishing communication networks, as activists. Today, we weave these networks with different tools. However, the act of networking is itself a political act. It enables the formation of multiple perspectives, thus deterrorization concepts and situations. This brings with it the transformation of dualities into multiplicities. Nature-culture, men and women, science or art. It questions existing hierarchies and opens them to discussion. It creates porous spaces. I see art somewhere in these porous spaces.

MK:The element of weaving is one of the integral elements of your practice. When talking about your work TextDraft you say “The project focuses on the role of weaving as a socio-cultural repository of memory and the metamorphosis of language created through weaving”. Could you please expand on that matter?

MM:In my tradition, we are very connected with our roots. We have a social structure in which many cultures and traditions are intertwined and diversified. And it is so important and valuable. The tradition is very important. The most important is, of course, language. However, apart from speaking and writing in the sense we use today, we need to realise that language also has its own differences. We can think of language as a converter. Just as we use symbols as a means of expression in mathematics, societies have used some symbols, signs, and knots in weaving to express themselves, to keep records or to leave traces. Weaving has been used as a means of communication for centuries. This practice, which has its own alphabet, was one of the most important tools of social life. These tools, which have been used for centuries, have aesthetics as well as functionality in a sense. Rather than uniform forms of knowledge, people have produced and internalised productions that contain many different means at the same time. These practices are not detached from daily life, as in modernist perspectives, but have emerged precisely within life. Therefore, we see a state of coexistence are intertwined.

Merve Mepa, Sample Sheets, 2023. Photo Courtesy: Merve Mepa.

 MK:When talking about Sample Sheets you mention “knowledge elitism”. What do you mean by that?

 MM: this notion refers to Eastern and Western countries. But it is more than that. It is about the domination of ideas about “local knowledges”. Knowledge elitism refers to the situation where the types and methods of knowledge are one-centered. The world we live in today is dominated by western-centred ways of thinking or practices. The hierarchies between types of knowledge run parallel to the hierarchy systems between societies or states. We often hear “their math”, “their philosophy”, “their art”. The Western-centred modernist perspective shapes the history by dominating the local forms of knowledge systems. Therefore, these knowledges are marginalised and ignored. This has affected all fields from science and art, to social. This paves the way for such a sharp separation of fields such as science, art, craft and biology. However, when we look at ancient history, it is not difficult to realise that the practices of these forms of knowledge are not at all separate from each other. Knowledge, practice and memory were all intertwined. The transmission of knowledge was not in the hands of a single control mechanism. Method and knowledge were disseminated between communities through forms of transmission. This is very important for the recording of social memory. It allows for structures in which the past and the future are not sharply separated. We can use the example of old masters such as Michelangelo for example. They were working like scientists, biologists. Or Mimar Sinan, an architect, engineer and artist at same time.  With its horizontal rather than vertical forms, it enables the diversity between areas, or between geographies and communities. I liken these structures to today's networks. With the emergence of autonomous control systems and synthetic intelligence, there is no longer any 'self', machine or another system to control. More precisely, the hierarchies between these structures are being destroyed and lost their centers in these networks. Instead, both humans and machines became elements of a cybernetic system, itself a system of control and communication. Therefore, network building is becoming important today in art production to build bridges between the past and the future.

Merve Mepa, N/A-A, 2024. Photo Courtesy: Merve Mepa.

MK:Which central points could you distinguish in your artistic practice? Is there one concrete message you would like to deliver to your audience?

MM:I would say I do not have some kind of a motto. When I do art… I do not like to say “doing art”. I am just doing. I am researching, I am reading. It is a process. And I am not thinking about the end of the process. It gives me freedom. This is why I feel uncomfortable saying “This is my artwork”. You do not have to see my projects as an art form, I do not like tagging. I do not draw lines in what I do, sometimes I just read, this is my artistic freedom.

MK: As an artist with their practice based on new technology, what is your prognosis on the development of this new medium?

MM: For me, new technology is more about networks. Is it really something “new”? The concept of medium is just a search for ties between things and matter. These networks are created by different mediums. As I am coding now women have been weaving before, it is all the same thing. None of these technologies is new, it is only the forms that are changing and they are very dynamic. They depend on social structures and discoveries.  In all fields, not only in art, new technologies have the opportunity to open important doors, and possibilities. I think it is worth evaluating.

Many thanks to Merve Mepa on behalf of MADE IN BED.

If you would like to find out more about Merve Mepa’s practice, visit their website.

Maya Kil

Interviews Co-Editor, MADE IN BED