[Green Passport]
Handmade embroidery on printed fabric
14.5 x 9.5 cm
22pages
Special Passport (2009) is handmade stitching on printed fabric, produced for the “road” project Reciprocal Visit, organized by Apartment Project in 2009. It is a visual record of the experiences at the border crossings during the road trip to Turkey's neighboring countries. “Green Passport” gives a Turkish citizen the right to pass without a visa to most of the European countries and the right of habitation of 3 months duration. The passport, being a document of identity verification, has lost its function in some way during the "Reciprocal" workshop trip to neighboring countries of Turkey. Throughout the road, “Passport” has revealed the language of political processes between countries of origin and destination. It has transformed from an instrumental object allowing the right of passage into a problem indicating the political processes between countries; into an object capable of “border breach” for a little while. The work “Green Passport” that I embroidered on fabric after the trip carries the stamps of the crossed borders and the images indicating the relations between countries. The original handmade work was produced as the printed copy.
Installation view: "New Talents" Bienalle, DEG, Köln, 2010