Ünal Bostancı, Timeless Palace Museum, 2016, Installation
In his work, Ünal Bostancı builds a timeless museum-palace inspired by the Dolmabahçe Palace. Ruminating on the recent past, but fabricated from contemporary materials, the objects are suggested memorabilia around the theme of transformation. The works, inspired by the furniture, accessories and stories at a palace-museum that witnessed the turn of an era, bear traces of historical deformation. ‘Revolution-seat’ takes center stage, as an updated version of the ‘Revolution’ seat, named and catalogued in 1952 as a portmanteau of the Turkish words for motion and cycle conveying its shape and movement. The first trip of Sultan Abdulaziz to Europe and the exile
chamber of Murad V appear as transformed reflections. The ceramic ‘The Unsittable Seat’ shows the western seat, at the entry to the Ottoman Palace. ‘A Coffee Cup In A Zarf’, ‘FF-Fezfedora’, ‘Unireform’ and ‘PVC-Framed Palace Window’ are reworkings of originals to match a state of contextual limbo.
Author, and head of National Palaces’ Clocks Collection Şule Gürbüz’s original narratives accompany the works.