Like a century old olive, a balmy pine, and a thousand silent lives… “Burning”, a word that smells charred, hot as a flame, turning things into charcoal, raining down ashes.

“Burning” is the ceramic sculpture I made during the Marmaris forest fires, every moment of which I witnessed in person, and it carries the pain of every single tree that suffocated as their bodies burned around the Aegean village where I live. It is covered with their ashes, carries their charred smell. It contains the hope that these fires will not reoccur, and the char-scented memories within its kiln fired earthen material.