The nature of multi-generational living is fragmented since it contains differing narratives, an abundance of disconnected memories, and the constant presence of the question who will leave first? To understand the moment before these separations to come, or maybe the moment of change, I am examining my grandparents’ apartment in Turkiye/Istanbul, where the structural fate of the building is uncertain and had different points of transformation before that which led to its current state of decay. Using recordings of the environment, conversations with my family, and polyvocality, I translate the fragments of memories and stories into materially transitional states like tears, breaks, edges and rips. The resulting prints, hand-made papers, and type-set hand bound book reflects the invisible ties of care, shared memories, and loss. The final reflections will go back to the question of our awaiting ‘goodbye’ and who it will be for.

During a recent artist talk at the Sir John Soane Museum, Nika Neelova mentioned Soane’s fascination with Pompeii and remarked on how its moment of destruction was also its moment of preservation.A site of encounter, that had met with a catastrophe, conflating physical space to a time of ruin; a peril encapsulated by the very thing that destroyed it. The site itself connects matter and time, raising an interesting dialogue between history and loss. You see, there wasn’t a chance to come to terms with your fate, in this context, only a sudden end, and a sense of abandonment from the world for those who were unfortunate to remain behind.

This brings me to my grandparents' apartment. Structurally unsafe, to a point where the building needs to be demolished and rebuilt, it’s in an earthquake zone, exacerbating the urgency of the situation. Long story short the building is in an awkward situation. There is no confirmed date for when the reconstruction will begin, and the potential occurrence of an earthquake leaves the existences within in a vulnerable position. My grandparents’ apartment exists in a state of limbo, a ruin to come; that also raises an interesting dialogue between memory, history, and death—a perpetual mode of coming to terms with a personal loss; what will be its moment of preservation?

The potential tragedy or the banality of just leaving, brings out complex dynamics between people and the architecture that houses them. Different members of the family feel it in their own unique ways, those ways not always being understood by the other. The overarching question: “when will we need to say goodbye and on what terms?” leaves everyone on edge. The material deconstruction has long been underway which parallels the fragmented narratives and perspectives within the family. Within the family, differing political views have appeared through the passage of time, a sign of the growing distance between generations; stemming from a large cultural divide between those who grow up in the village in comparison to those raised in the big city, fostering an environment where there is a clear unwillingness to communicate and connect across these generations.

This transitional place that has housed them for three decades, has undergone multiple transformations alongside the family, is now losing its importance in an already transitioned big city and will soon be destroyed by said city. What will remain in its memory? This seemingly insignificant apartment block is getting left behind in the grand scheme of the ever evolving political and cultural current. A space of movement and transition overflowing with fragments of the past and the present, that is paradoxically in stasis, unable to actively change but is also crumbling passively. The domestic life within this fragile architecture remains in arrest by its decay, and in return perpetuates its decay through the act of negligence, with the threads between people, memories, and the apartment weakening, thus the ‘in-between’ becomes perceivable.

Care and responsibility flows through the peripheries of these fragments, assembling the apartment into the home that it is. It is the ‘inter-’ that makes two pieces fluid. “Inter-”, as a prefix, is used to form adjectives meaning ‘between’ or ‘among’ the people, things, or places mentioned: intergenerational, interrelational, interpersonal, interdisciplinary, intertwined, intervened, between lines, between openings, between what is told. It is the dynamics of push and pull, the observant and observed, continuously co-existing in a cycle. The mode of this interplay in states of existence, is the root of this artistic research; in what ways does it exist and how is it felt, how it is explored through the actions of producing paralleling actions of care: paper-making and print-making in this case.

The understanding of the pieces, care, intent and ‘in between,’ comes with the intricate modes of recording, collecting, transformation and translation. The form of grid facilitates the deconstruction of the apartment and maintains the illusion of ease and a real sense of danger. In addition, the medium of paper can activate the complex relationships between memory, history, and care within a place. Through the grid and paper the psychic place of the apartment transforms, its fragments translated into ink and paper finding domicile in the land of language, in which its intimacy can be glanced at between the lines; the site of engagement between my practice, the audience and the apartment.

This will be a journey of the apartment told by the way of auto-ethnographic writing and transcribing oral accounts filtered through my perspective on the story of the apartment supported by artistic and theoretical research. The private stories, edited in some cases as to keep the privacy of the family, will interject the overall research and be denoted in roman numerals. These stories are often retold and shared many times thus it is not clear what is fiction and what is real; to unearth the strata of narratives, I will utilize various methods of interjection, emphasizing and receding the text like different fonts, colours, and positions on the page.

It will start with setting the story of the apartment as it stands currently, moving on to explaining the fragments of the apartment and what it entails within the context of this research. From there the artistic research will be discussed as it pertains to the ruin, in-between, grid, paper, print, and care. The process and the building of the text as the site of encounter and grief will be reflected on the final two chapters: Invisible Apartment and Remains of a Goodbye which will also conclude this research with its further considerations. Through the artistic research a visage of the apartment curated, and its future ruin is pre-emptively excavated.

The chance to come to terms with an unchanging and certain fate involves the constant projection of different stages of time: the past, the present, and the future. A chance was not offered to the unfortunate souls of Pompeii. Sir John Soane acknowledged this, offering himself a place of respite, something built from his grief when he speculated on the soul and function of his home; what will be the future ruin of it, or better yet, what might survive and reach out beyond time? However grim it may be to ruminate on the potential ruin of a home, its future ghosts are already here, and the emotions of loss remain in the nostalgia and silence as grief hangs in the air and the act of reminiscing takes over. Family members, ever more out of touch, prepare for the threat of tragedy as it lingers over their heads. We too must come to terms with this failing place.